A CHARGE 
 
 DELIVERED 
 AT THE FOURTH VISITATION OF HIS DIOCESE, 
 
 Ar 
 
 riDancbcetcr, Xancastcr anb Blachburn, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 5th, 6th and 7th November, 1884, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE RIGHT REV. JAMES ERASER, D,D,, 
 Bisbop of flDaucbcetcr. 
 
 lilANX' II ESTER: 
 FARGIE (LATE RowoRTH), z\, St. ANN'S SQUARE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 GRIFFITIL I ARRAN, OKEDEN & WELSH. 
 
 ibc^4.
 
 THE CHARGE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND THE LORD 
 BISHOP OF MANCHESTER. 
 
 Mv 
 
 Reverend Brethren and 
 
 Brethren of the Laity, 
 
 HE custom of this diocese, laid down by my prede- 
 cessor in office, to whom we owe nearly the whole 
 of the excellent organisation which, as a diocese, we 
 
 possess, has been that an episcopal visitation should be held 
 every four years. Not that Bishop Lee fully carried out the 
 custom in practice, for I believe he only visited the diocese 
 twice in the 22 years of his episcopate ; at least, I have only 
 seen two of his published charges. But he established the 
 period, and I have advisedly kept to it. It is true that the 
 canons of 1603 seem to fix "every third year" as the proper 
 period for the visitation of the bishop ; but as they also require 
 confirmations to be triennial, and to take place at the same 
 time at which the bishop visits his diocese — " in his accustomed 
 visitation " — and such a rule in this thickly peopled district 
 would be manifestly impracticable, it seems to be a case in 
 which a canon 280 years old need not be pressed in its letter, 
 and, there being no principle involved, custom, when it coincides 
 with convenience, may be allowed to prevail over rule. In 
 one diocese that I know of — that of Norwich — the visitation of 
 the bishop is held every seventh year. But that interval seems 
 as much too wide as the interval of three years is too narrow ;
 
 4 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 and to the quadrennial period I now, by preference, for the 
 fourth time adhere. Our confirmations, as you all know, are 
 biennial ; and still following the admirable programme marked 
 out by Bishop Lee, every incumbent knows, to within a few 
 days, when, in each alternate year, the confirmations in his rural 
 deanery will be held ; and, without waiting for any special 
 notice from the bishop, can choose his own time for the 
 preparation of his candidates. 
 
 At a time occupied with events — social, political, ecclesias- 
 tical — of such wide and profound interest, exciting so many hopes 
 and fears, and in all cases such eager, if not anxious, appre- 
 hensions, it is manifestly impossible, within the compass of time 
 during which I could reasonably hope to command your 
 attention, to touch upon all the topics that inevitably suggest 
 themselves. It is absolutely necessary to make a selection ; 
 and though some may regret to find a subject in which they 
 are specially interested either wholly omitted or inadequately 
 dealt with, I trust that most subjects of importance, upon which 
 a diocese has perhaps a right to know its bishop's mind, will 
 be found to have received attention to some extent proportion- 
 ate to their importance. 1 am as alive as any of you can be 
 to the critical character of this present time. Great questions, 
 affecting not only the relations of the Church to the State, but 
 touching the Church's own standards of doctrine, and ritual, 
 and discipline are in agitation everywhere. We are living in 
 the ferment of a new time. The old order changeth. The 
 democratic principle, which is making itself felt in the State 
 every year more and more cannot but affect the Church ; and 
 as the Gospel of Christ has happily kept itself free from all 
 political attachments, and even from all special social conditions, 
 seeking only to infuse its own pure and noble spirit into all 
 institutions and all forms of society with which it may find itself 
 surrounded, we need not be afraid that the Church, if she be 
 free in the spirit and truly taught the mind of Christ, will lose 
 her power of adapting herself to the most novel conditions and 
 changed circumstances of the outward life of men. It is for us 
 to see to it that we be not so far cramped by old ideas, which
 
 The Spirit of the Age. 5 
 
 however valuable in, or suitable to their time, have outlived 
 that time, and are now hindrances rather than helps to us in 
 our work, that we lose the elasticity and the resourcefulness 
 which the situation demands, and become a Sardis in the 19th 
 century, — a Church with a name of life, when it is dead. I 
 ask you to remember, therefore, that we are not living in the 
 fourth century, or in the days of the Tudors or of the Stuarts, 
 but in the 48th year of the reign of her Most Gracious Majesty 
 Queen Victoria. It is with methods suitable to the spiritual 
 and moral needs of this present time that we are concerned. 
 This seems so obvious as to be a truism ; and yet men appear 
 to be continually forgetting it, and to be living, both in thought 
 and conduct, in any other age than their own. It was Lord 
 Clarendon's judgment of the clergy that, as a class, they were 
 the slowest of any to discern the signs of the time, or to deal 
 practically with them when they discerned them, ^^'hether the 
 reproach was ever justly deserved or not, I am sure that now 
 is a time when we have all need to rub our eyes and try to 
 ascertain the tendency of things ; and if there be indeed a 
 stream, outside ourselves, which makes for righteousness, and 
 the old channels, which once sufficed, are too narrow to 
 contain it, we must see whether those channels cannot be 
 widened, lest the stream become a flood, and break down 
 all barriers, and the very ideas of order and rule perish in 
 the outburst of an anarchical fanaticism. That there is some 
 danger of this no reasonable man, capable of observing 
 phenomena and of calculating their drift and force, can doubt. 
 
 At such a time it surely becomes one who holds the office of 
 an overseer in the Church to invite his brethren in the ministry 
 calmly to consider with him what these phenomena precisely mean : 
 what these stirrings and yearnings indicate ; what modifications in 
 our system and methods may help us to guide, and perha])s to 
 satisfy them ; and generally, to learn whatever lessons of wisdom 
 or expediency they have to teach us. I will attempt a brief 
 conspectus of the state of the diocese first, and then proceed to 
 deal with some of those larger questions which are occupying 
 man's thoughts to-day.
 
 6 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 One previous word, however. The Church has sustained some 
 grievous losses in the last four years. I will not dwell on the death 
 of her great Primate, on Advent Sunday, 1S82 ; the greatest name, 
 I venture to think, on her roll of archbishops since Tillotson. 
 Great in the councils of the Church ; great also in the councils of 
 the nation — whose prescient eye seemed to discern the signs of 
 the coming time, and who tried to teach Churchmen those lessons 
 of wisdom true, because large-hearted, which would carry the 
 ark of the Church safely, even through storms if they arose. He 
 is gone, and the influence which sprang from the confidence that 
 all men seemed to place in him, is gone with him ; and naturally 
 men will pause before they give it as unreservedly to another. Nor 
 can I do more than touch upon, in the briefest terms, the gaps 
 caused by the hand of death in our own ranks, — the antique 
 picturesque figure of James Dawson Bannister, for more than half- 
 a-century Incumbent of Pilling ; the gentle, spiritual face of 
 William Haworth, for 46 years Vicar of Fence- in-Pendle ; the 
 handsome features, the genial manner, the scholarly accomplish- 
 ments of Henry Mildred Birch, for 32 years Rector of Prestwich ; 
 the old type of culture and of manners exhibited by Thomas Roth- 
 well Bently, for 44 years Rector of St. Matthew's, Manchester ; the 
 warm and kindly heart of William Thursby, for more than 30 years 
 Vicar ofWorsthome, and a great benefactor of the Church in the 
 neighbourhood in which he resided. Death has laid his inexorable 
 hand on all these.* But there are two graves on which I must be 
 allowed to lay the wreath of my own grateful and affectionate 
 remembrance — the graves of John Burder and Hugh Birley ■ the 
 one my courteous and ever-trusted secretary, who from the very 
 beginning served the diocese as faithfully a^ for 15 years he served 
 me ; the other the very type and leader of those princely-hearted 
 laymen whose sagacious foresight and open-handed liberality have 
 made the Church in Lancashire as strong as she is to-day. You 
 all knew them both, and can understand the sense of almost 
 desolation, that came over me when God took first the one and 
 then the other. And though others may be raised up as good, as 
 
 ■ Nor should I omit the name of Richard Newsham, of Preston, whose Hberality in 
 every form of church work has been so fruitful of results in that town.
 
 State of the Diocese. 7 
 
 helpful, as liberal, I should think worse of myself than I do if I 
 ever could forget men whose friendship and whose helpfulness I 
 proved and never found them fail. This poor tribute is, at least, 
 due from me to their memory. 
 
 Speaking generally, and as I hope to show presently when I go 
 a little more into detail, the state of the diocese, in all the great 
 departments of Christian activity, is not only hopeful but 
 encouraging. Some parishes here and there have perhaps fallen 
 into the backwater, and enjoy that unenviable tranquility which 
 simply indicates that nothing is being done. But throughout the 
 diocese there are manifest tokens of life, and of active life ; the 
 instances of narrow and bitter partisanship on the one hand, or of 
 a schismatical lawlessness on the other, are rare ; the clergy find 
 willing helpers in the laity, whenever that help is needed and 
 invited ; the churchwardens are inspired with an honourable zeal to 
 do their duty ; and if there has been less church building in the 
 two last than in some previous years, it is because, with the 
 exception of a few districts, the wants of the Church have been 
 fairly well supplied, and Churchmen are turning their activity, 
 for the moment, into other channels. 
 
 AV^hen, however, I say this, I must say at the same time that 
 our diocesan organisations — properly so-called — such as the 
 Church Building Society and the Education Board — are sadly 
 crippled from want of funds, and I must earnestly beg the clergy 
 to bring the wants of these societies — and even the fact of their 
 existence — more distinctly before their people, than many of them 
 so far have seen their way to do. When I see what can be done 
 in this direction in such parishes as Leesfield or St. John's, Hey, 
 which are quite of the ordinary working-class type, and where 
 people give their shiUing or their half-crown a year, I see that 
 there is a layer of goodwill and liberality which in many parishes 
 we have not tried to reach, yet which can not only be reached but 
 opened with the most advantageous results. I must commend 
 also to the clergy in the archdeaconries of Manchester and 
 Blackburn the Warrington Charities for the widows and orphans 
 of clergy who have ministered within those limits, and the Clergy 
 Daughters' School which we use so freely and support so
 
 8 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 inadequately. In the archdeaconry of Blackburn hardly anything 
 is done, the contributions to the widows and orphans' fund last 
 year only amounting tO;!^74, to the Clergy Daughters' School to 
 ^^14. And yet I need not impress upon you the unspeakable 
 value to the families of the clergy of both these branches of the 
 charity. 
 
 Having singled out two parishes for praise in one direction, 
 I may mention one more as an example in another direction, the 
 success with which lay-help has been secured and organised : the 
 one thing which in large parishes most of us feel to be the greatest 
 need, and which at the same time we find it so difficult to supply. 
 The parish of St. Luke's, Miles Platting, contains a population of 
 nearly 10,000, living in over 2,000 houses. The rector is assisted 
 by a curate, but feeling the utter inadequacy of such a staff to the 
 spiritual needs of the parish, he has organised a Christian Workers' 
 Association, who are pledged to help the clergy in the work of the 
 parish by endeavouring to promote four great objects: — i. A 
 more general and constant attendance at the public services 
 of the parish church. 2. The bringing of infants to Holy 
 Baptism, and young persons to confirmation. 3. More regular 
 and punctual attendance at the day and Sunday schools. 4. The 
 well being, spiritual and moral, of the inhabitants of the parish. 
 The number of the members of this association is 98 ; they meet 
 once a month to pray together, to take counsel, and to make their 
 reports ; and the average attendance at the monthly meetings of 
 last year was 59. I was myself present at one of these and can 
 testify to the excellent Christian spirit and practical character 
 which pervaded all the proceedings. Besides this organisation 
 the parish, which contains about 70 streets and courts, is divided 
 into 77 districts for the purpose of visiting, each district being 
 placed under the charge of a single person (there are 13 men and 
 64 women thus employed), and containing from 16 (the lowest) 
 to 40 (the highest) number of houses. These visitors give to the 
 clergy, on a form provided for the purpose, notice of cases of 
 sickness or sorrow occurring in their district ; the names of those 
 who attend church but have not received a pastoral visit, probably 
 as new comers into the parish ; and the names of new parishioners.
 
 Association of Lay Helpers. 9 
 
 During the past year 71S such notices have been reported to the 
 clergy. The services of the church are exceedingly bright and 
 hearty, and seem to arouse a lively and sympathetic interest in 
 those who attend them ; and though I read some remarks of the 
 rector made at his annual congregational tea party, which struck 
 me as unduly sad in tone, as though some remnants of vice and 
 degradation were not to be expected even under the most perfect 
 organisation, I can commend, as I have often commended, the 
 example of this parish, as a pattern to which the organisations of 
 our populous town parishes, each, of course, according to its 
 opportunities and the measure of its needs, may, with great 
 advantage, be conformed. Many parishes, I know, are already 
 being worked on similar lines ; but as this is the most complete 
 example of a parochial organisation, such as I desire to see largely 
 imitated, I have selected it. 
 
 While calling attention to the importance of endeavouring to 
 secure the services of well-disposed laymen in the work of the 
 Church, I ought not to pass by the fact that at the last session of 
 our Diocesan Conference, in 18S3, a committee was appointed to 
 consult with the Bishop and lay down a scheme for an association 
 of lay helpers, and to take measures for carrying it into effect. 
 The committee have just reported to me, and I will print the 
 document as an appendix to this charge when published. The 
 subject has been now for some time before the diocese, and if the 
 scheme is generally approved, I think the time has come for acting 
 upon it. It is a maxim of modern life that association is strength. 
 Such a bond of union as is suggested between lay helpers has been 
 found a powerful stimulus to action in the diocese of London, 
 where there is an association composed, I believe, of fully 4,000 
 members ; and I see no reason why a similar association should 
 not be formed and do good work here. I shall be glad to give 
 the project all the support and assistance in my power, and I ask 
 the committee to continue their labours till the organisation is fully 
 established in the diocese. I am satisfied with the scheme which 
 they have prepared, and if it should need any modifications these 
 will be best discovered and can easily be made when it is put 
 into practice. All I wish is that there may be no further delay,
 
 lo Bishop's Charge : 
 
 and that the scheme may be in working order before the diocesan 
 conference meets in the autumn of next year. We have talked 
 quite long enough about it. 
 
 But I will now take a wider view, and it cannot fail to be of 
 interest if I place before you in a summarised form some of the 
 principal details of work which has been done in the diocese 
 during an episcopate which will have completed its 15th year on 
 March 25, 1SS5. The number of churches in the diocese at the 
 present moment is 492, containing 357,806 sittings, 212,467 of 
 w hich are free. In licensed chapels and rooms there is a further 
 provision of about 43,000 sittings, which are nearly wholly free. 
 There is, therefore, a total supply in the diocese for those who 
 desire to worship God in the sober and well-ordered manner of the 
 Church of England of about 400,000 sittings, of which 253,000 are 
 free. There are still some waste or remote places requiring 
 new churches, and some large parishes, of which Christ Church, 
 Bradford, or S. Mary's, Oldham, may be taken as examples, urgently 
 needing sub-division ; but speaking generally of the condition 
 of the diocese, I am not sure whether the time has not come 
 tor diverting our attention for a while from the task of building 
 churches to the more urgent and difficult work of filling them. 
 Of these 492 churches, 130 (of which no were the churches 
 of new parishes) were erected during the episcopate of Bishop 
 Lee, who pressed on this work with a diligence that cannot be 
 too gratefully remembered, by which 87,000 new sittings were 
 gained, at a cost of ^542,000. In my own time, up to the 
 present date, 104 new district parishes and ecclesiastical districts 
 have been formed ; 117 new churches have been consecrated 
 (including 20 erected in lieu of former churches), built at a 
 cost of ^898,000, and providing accommodation for 70.000 
 worshippers. Some of the finer and more costly churches of 
 this period are the Parish Church of Bolton, S. John the 
 Evangelist, Cheetham ; S. Edmond's, Falinge ; S. Mary's, 
 Balderston ; S. James's, Collyhurst ; S. Augustine's, Pendlebury ; 
 S. Mark's, Glodwick : S. Clement's, Ordsall ; S. Peter's, Scorton ; 
 S. Benedict's, Ardwick ; All Souls', Bolton (speedily to be 
 followed by another, built by the same generous hand) ;
 
 Statistics of the Diocese. i i 
 
 S. Peter's, Westleigh ; S. Anne's, Haughton ; Christ Church, 
 Didsbury ; S. Elizabeth's, Reddish Green ; S. Thomas, New 
 Hey ; S. Cross, Clayton ; S. Ann's, Clifton, which have all 
 been built, and some of them partly endowed, by individuals ; 
 while such fine restorations as those of the Parish Church, 
 Bury, and the Parish Church, Leigh, the former of which cost 
 ^27,000, and the latter ;^io,ooo, show what can be achieved 
 when Lancashire people are really interested in a work and 
 are determined to carry it through. 
 
 Of the 492 incumbents of the diocese, 328 — or 66 per 
 cent. — have been admitted to their cures by me— a wonderful 
 illustration of that law of change which gives to none of us 
 here a long abiding place, and bids all do the work that lies 
 before us while it is day ; while the number whom I have 
 ordained and sent forth into the ministry of the Church in this 
 period of 15 years is 456, Of the 492 Churches, I have either 
 preached, or held a confirmation, or done some episcopal act 
 in 478. The aggregate population of the 14 parishes which I 
 have not visited (with the exception of one parish of 4,500 where 
 peculiar circumstances kept me away) is under 5,000, so that, 
 considering the population of the diocese has reached the huge 
 total of 2,297,000, I have given opportunity to the great bulk 
 of the people of knowing at least by face the overseer who was 
 set over them. 
 
 The number of candidates for confirmation has been steadily 
 rising year after year, till in the year 1SS3 it culminated in the 
 large number of 16,354, the largest number, I should imagine, 
 which has ever been confirmed, in these last days, in one year 
 by a single bishop with his own hand. The figures of this 
 year are not quite complete, as I have four or five smaller 
 confirmations still to hold ; but they will probably amount to 
 nearly 13,000. In the single rural deanery ot Bolton I have 
 this year confirmed 3,050 candidates, and from one parish, in 
 that deanery, S. Matthew's, I have received 302 candidates, 
 122 of whom were males. These figures show what zeal and 
 diligence will do. The total number that I have confirmed in 
 these fifteen years has been 173,380 (65,674 males, and 107,706
 
 12 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 females). I could wish that the proportion between males 
 and females had been more equal ; and I cannot press any 
 part of their work on the clergy with more earnestness than 
 that — difficult, but not impossible — of getting an increasing 
 number of the young men of their parishes ready to seek and to 
 receive that strength from God — the one great stay amid the 
 stormy passions and temptations of youth — which we believe to 
 be given to those who duly seek it in this holy ordinance. 
 
 Of course all these statistics relate only to external things, 
 and the credit for any success achieved is due to the zeal of 
 the clergy and laity, who have laboured for these large results, 
 much more than to the bishop, who has done no more than 
 discharge his duty, and found all these things made ready to 
 his hand. But I trust that no clergyman in the diocese has 
 ever had any reason to complain that his work has been 
 unappreciated by his bishop, or that in doing it he has not 
 received that support and sympathy from me which he had a 
 right to expect. I have been singularly unfortunate in my 
 manner of giving expression to the deepest feelings of my heart, 
 which are those of joy and thankfulness wherever I see good 
 work done, if that impression has been left upon any mind. 
 
 And though I have said these are only external things, and no 
 greater weight must be attached to them than belongs to such, I 
 cannot but hope and believe that they are, in a measure, signs and 
 proofs of something higher and better — of the stirrings of religious 
 r.fe, of spiritual progress, of a deeper, stronger faith, — which with 
 hopeful hearts we may set against some of the less encouraging 
 phenomena of the age. We are far from having reached the limits of 
 achievement which with yet more earnest prayer and devotion and 
 zeal we may be permitted to attain : but this measure of success, 
 won not without effort, is at least a token that we are on the right 
 road, and that the faithful performance of duty does not miss its 
 immediate and natural reward. 
 
 From evidence that I have before me I am afraid that some at 
 least of the agents of the Liberationist Society are doing the work 
 entrusted to them with even more of that acrimonious and bitter 
 spirit which I noticed and regretted in my first charge of 1872. I
 
 Attacks upon the Church. 13 
 
 do not corni)lain that the society should employ agents, or should 
 pay them. So far it is a perfectly legitimate method of warfare, 
 and we must be prepared for it, and meet it as best we can. But 
 I think there might in fairness be some limit to the language of 
 intense vituperation which these agents sometimes use. I extract 
 a passage from a lecture, which I know has been the instrument of 
 stirring up bad blood between neighbours in many parishes in this 
 diocese, as a sample of the spirit that I am indicating. 
 Endeavouring to prove the tyrannical spirit of " the State Church," 
 the lecturer says : — " Who is it that has always sided with the rich 
 against the poor.'* The parson. — Who has always ranged himself on 
 the side of the peer against the people ? The parson. — Who has 
 kept the villagers of England in the deep ditch of poverty and 
 ignorance ? The parson.— Whom do the rural populations dread 
 and hate most ? The parson. — Who are for the most part the Tory 
 centres in town and country ? The parsons. The parson is a 
 despot, and well do the inhabitants of our villages and hamlets 
 know it. Many of them know that, if they went to the chapel 
 instead of the church, they would get notice to quit their cottage, 
 notice to quit their work, notice, in fact, to leave the place of 
 their birth and upbringing, the place where their fathers sleep. 
 Farm labourers are almost to a man the sworn foes of the 
 parsons, and they long and pray for the day when the despot 
 will be removed. Hundreds of villages in England to-day 
 dare not have a Liberation meeting. They know the ruin the 
 village tyrants would bring on them if they did. Am I asked, 
 'Is the Church of England worth preserving?' You might as 
 well ask me, ' Is the cholera worth preserving?' No tyranny 
 is worth preserving ; and with all the emphasis of an intense 
 conviction, I say that the Church of England is not, never 
 was, and is never likely to be worth preserving." I think that 
 many, who disapprove of the principle of an Established Church, 
 but who are reasonable and fair-minded men, will dislike and 
 resent such language almost as warmly as Churchmen can do. 
 For it is the language of mere reckless and rancorous invective, 
 calculated to give the utmost amount of pain rather than to 
 produce the utmost amount of persuasion. It has succeeded for
 
 14 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 the moment, as I know, in inflaming passion : but I doubt even 
 if the most ignorant hearer, when he grew calm, believed it all, or 
 supposed that this iniquitous " parson," this tyrannical " State 
 Church," were either of them quite so black as they have been 
 painted. I deprecate such weapons of controversy, and do not 
 think that they do credit to those who employ them. An 
 institution so abominable as the State Church is here represented 
 to be, must have long ago perished, as it would have deserved to 
 perish, in the storm of universal reprobation that it would have 
 excited. It could not now be, as even its enemies admit that it is, 
 stronger and more active than ever. Men do not tolerate what is 
 described as being as bad as the cholera in their midst. 
 
 I see that the newspapers have described me as being about to 
 take a very bold step in the direction of the extension of the 
 diaconate. There really is not very much boldness in simply 
 being prepared to give effect to a resolution which was 
 unanimously passed by the Upper House of the Convocation of 
 Canterbury, and which was adopted this year in full synod by the 
 Convocation of York. The following are the terms of the 
 resolution : " This House is of opinion that, in view of the 
 overwhelming need of increase in the numbers of the ministry, 
 and the impossibiUty of providing sufficient endowments for the 
 purpose, it is expedient to ordain to the office of deacon men 
 possessing other means of living, who are willing to aid the clergy 
 gratuitously, provided that they be tried and examined according 
 to the Preface of the Ordinal, and in particular be found to possess 
 a competent knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, of the Book of 
 Common Prayer, and of theology in general ; provided also that 
 they be in no case admitted to the priesthood unless they can pass 
 all the examinations which are required in the case of other 
 candidates for that office, and that they shall have devoted their 
 whole time to spiritual labour for not less than four years, unless 
 they are graduates, before they present themselves for these 
 examinations." This resolution, though many thought that it 
 might have been improved in some points, the York Convocation 
 accepted as it came to them from the Upper House of Canterbury, 
 in order that the unanimity of the two Convocations on the subject
 
 Extension of the Diaconate. 15 
 
 might not be disturbed. After our session was concluded, the 
 bishops, who were present, met in conference under the archbishop, 
 to devise certain rules, which it was thought desirable should be 
 followed in any attempt that any of us might make to give effect to 
 the resolution. The rules agreed to were these : — -i. Candidates for 
 the office of deacon, thus understood, are not to be under thirty years 
 of age. 2. They must be willing to serve gratuitously. 3. The 
 request for ordination must come from the incumbent of the parish 
 in which the deacon is willing to serve. 4. The examination of such 
 candidates, though simpler than the usual one, shall require a sound 
 and intelligent knowledge of the Old and New Testaments, the 
 Prayer Book, and the formularies of the Church of England. I 
 have received applications from three or four persons desiring to 
 be admitted to the diaconate on these terms ; and if I find them 
 duly qualified, I am prepared to admit them to this office, pro- 
 bably at a special ordination to be held for the purpose this 
 coming Advent. My only doubt about the plan has been whether 
 there is a sutficient number of persons at once desirous and fit to 
 be ordained, who will in any adequate measure meet the neces- 
 sities of the case. For that the clergy need more clerical help 
 cannot, I think, be questioned, I myself doubt whether, as the 
 law now stands, laymen, however well qualified, can preach in 
 our churches. Under proper safeguards I wish they could. They 
 certainly cannot assist the priest in the distribution of the Sacra- 
 ment, where, unless you adopt the method, only justified by 
 necessity, of administering to a railful of communicants at a time, 
 the service is very trying, physically to the weak, and often spiritu- 
 ally even to the strong ; and where, with the increasing number of 
 communicants, especially at the great festival seasons, some help 
 is urgently required. The deacons of the new order, if I may so 
 call them, will be able to do both these things, and in many other 
 ways help forward the wellbeing of the parish ; and though I do 
 not expect too much from the experiment, it certainly seems to 
 me an experiment worth trying. And so, if fit men present them- 
 selves to me, I mean to try it. The ministries of the Church are 
 not open, by our statute law, to persons actually engaged in trade ; 
 but the idea of those who have pressed this matter forward with
 
 i6 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 much zeal is that there are a number of persons scattered about 
 the country, of independent means, or who would not be called 
 tradesmen, who are quite fitted for the office, and who, if it were 
 opened to them, might be disposed to seek it. 
 
 It is natural to pass from deacons to deaconesses. There 
 seems evidence enough that in the earliest days of the Church, 
 in the apostolic age itself, women were employed in the 
 ministrations of the Church, and classed in orders according to 
 the nature of their work. There was possibly an order of 
 prophetesses, such as were the four daughters of Philip the 
 Evangelist, who dwelt at C^sarea. There was the order of 
 widows, for whom certain broad rules are laid down by S. Paul. 
 There was the order of deaconesses, one of whom was that 
 Phcebe of Cenchrea, mentioned in Romans xvi. ; and the women 
 (whom the learned Bishop of Durham says must have been 
 deaconesses, and not, as our authorised version has it, merely 
 the wives of the deacons) whose qualifications for their work 
 are set down in i Timothy iii. ii. Indeed, the usefulness of 
 the services that can be rendered by women in the Christian 
 Church is indisputable ; and the only question is whether these 
 services require training, and what is the best form of training 
 for them. Without discussing this latter point, I desire to say 
 that a deaconess institution has been this year established at 
 Rochdale, in a building entirely suitable for the purpose, which 
 lias been placed by the gentleman who built it at the disposal of 
 the vicar for this particular object. It is desired to give it a 
 diocesan constitution, and to elicit for it diocesan support. It 
 is at present occupied by one deaconess, a Christain lady of 
 large experience, who is described to me as admirably suited 
 to the work, and three or four probationers. The Vicar of 
 Rochdale takes great interest in the enterprise, and watches 
 over it wisely and affectionately. Everything at present is in 
 the tentative stage, but I shall be glad to see it pass into an 
 assured stability and permanence, for I am convinced that it 
 may be an instrument of much good. I have myself promised 
 a subscription of ;2{^io a year towards its maintenance; and I 
 should be glad if others also could see their way to help
 
 Repairs of Churches. 17 
 
 forward the cause. If there should ever be a dozen probationers 
 in the house, the cost of the institution could not be much 
 less than ;^5oo a year. Another way of helping the institution 
 is by recommending suitable persons to seek this training and 
 offer themselves for this ministry. Canon Maclure, of Rochdale, 
 will be ready to give all needful information. I cannot conceive 
 any department of activity in which women imbued with a 
 Christain spirit may find more happiness for themselves, or be 
 the instruments of more good to others. I should regret if, in 
 the midst of all our efforts to educate women for their proper 
 work in life, this kind of work, in every way so proper for 
 them, so fruitful of the most blessed results to others, should 
 be overlooked or neglected. It will be a source of great joy 
 to me if the Deaconess Institution at Rochdale, which it is 
 desired to keep on the most simple, natural lines, thrives and 
 prospers. 
 
 One of my rural deans has called my attention to a fact 
 which has painfully impressed him in his visit to the churches 
 of his deanery, viz., the great difficulty experienced in poor 
 parishes in providing the funds required for the repair of the 
 fabric of the church, and even for meeting the cost of the 
 maintenance of public worship ; and suggests the advisableness 
 of creating a central diocesan fund, out of which grants might 
 be made for these purposes. But I fear this is impracticable. 
 Churchmen have become too parochialised in their ideas upon 
 such subjects to make it likely that they would be willing to 
 subscribe — at any rate in adequate amount — to a central fund ; 
 and the discriminating administration of the fund, supposing it 
 to be created, would be a matter of such difficulty, and I am 
 afraid also of such invidiousness, that a competent committee 
 could hardly be found to undertake it. I can only offer a few 
 suggestions in lieu of this one which my judgment compels me 
 to dismiss as impracticable. In the first place, those who are 
 responsible for these expenses must learn to look for help from 
 the many rather than the few. Upon this point I may be 
 pardoned if I repeat an incident which I have mentioned in 
 public before, which happened to me this year, and caused me
 
 1 8 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 unaffected pleasure and surprise. At J^ittle Lever, a colliery 
 village near Bolton, I was asked to preach a sermon this 
 summer in behalf of the fund that was being raised for a new 
 organ. They were ambitious — too ambitious, I told them — to 
 have an organ which would cost ^600 or ;^7oo. I thought a 
 less expensive one would answer the purpose ; but no ; they 
 had set their heart upon this object, and were not going to be 
 baulked. They had raised among themselves some ;^3oo, and 
 my sermon was to give a further impetus to the movement. The 
 Church, which contains about 800 sittings, was quite full with a 
 congregation perfectly respectable but with no indications of wealth 
 in it. I thought to myself when I surveyed them, Well, if I get 
 ^50 out of you I shall have done very well. The collection 
 amounted to ;^i28. But the composition of it was more 
 wonderful still. There were five ;^io notes, representing the 
 wealth of the parish ; and there were 59 sovereigns, representing 
 the vivid interest in the work of those who were not wealthy but 
 who were willing to give, and who must (in St. Paul's phrase) have 
 " laid by them in store " to be ready for this appeal, and who 
 therefore must have been moved, like the Macedonian churches 
 whom the Apostle holds up for an example to the Corinthians, to 
 *'this riches of their liberality" by their own warm hearts, and not 
 by any eloquence of mine. A few Sundays later the same congre- 
 gation, I was told, contributed an equal, or a larger, sum for the 
 support of their schools. I mention the incident as illustrating 
 what can be done when we throw ourselves upon the generosity of 
 the people. 
 
 Another important point to be remembered is that repairs of 
 the fabric ought to be attended to in time. An instance of a less 
 pleasant kind than the one just narrated is before me now, and 
 causing me a good deal of anxiety. There is a church in 
 Manchester, St. Mary's, which I think might without any dis- 
 advantage be removed, and its population distributed among the 
 adjoining parishes. This church has been allowed — I do not 
 throw the blame upon anyone in particular — to fall into a lament- 
 able state of disrepair. By Act of Parliament the maintenance of 
 the fabric is one of the first charges upon the revenues of the Dean
 
 Duties of Churchwardens. 19 
 
 and Chapter. If these repairs had been attended to ten years 
 ago perhaps ^500 would have put the church into sohd and 
 substantial repair. An architect's estimate of what now needs to 
 be done puts the cost at upwards of ;^2,ooo. A commission that 
 I appointed a year or two back to investigate the matter, reported 
 unanimously that in^their opinion the church should be removed ; 
 but so many difficulties surround this process, which, in view of all 
 the circumstances, it would probably require an Act of Parliament 
 to carry through, that I despair of seeing the removal accomplished 
 in my time ; and yet I should regard any sum spent upon putting 
 the fabric into proper repair almost as so much money wasted ; for 
 I fear that a congregation even to half fill the church is never 
 likely to be gathered there. 
 
 Much money is also, I think, often wasted upon the internal 
 decoration of churches, that decoration being generally, to my taste, 
 of an excessive, and in some cases even of a coarse and tawdry kind, 
 v/hich might have been much better spent in putting the external 
 parts of the fabric in solid and substantial repair. Attention to the 
 state of the outer roof, to the glazing of the windows, and to the 
 provisions against dry-rot — often never thought of till the devastating 
 fungus has spread itself everywhere under the floor — would often 
 save an expenditure of hundreds of pounds. 
 
 It is also a matter of paramount importance that churches 
 should be adequately insured. Fires occur in them, generally 
 through some defect in the heating apparatus, with increasing 
 frequency ; and the moral of St. Mary's, Crumpsall, fired by 
 the hghtning conductor (a badly-planned instrument of safety 
 becoming the very cause of the disaster), insured for ;;/,2,5oo 
 and costing upwards of ;,^' 15,000 to rebuild, is never absent 
 from my mind when I reflect upon this possible danger to 
 which all churches are exposed. If incumbents, with the Dilapi- 
 dations Act before them, neglect to insure their parsonage 
 houses to the required amount — three-fifths of their value — they 
 know what penalty they will have to pay for their incicria. 
 
 Churchwardens — to whom, when faithful in the discharge of 
 their office, I cannot express the gratitude that I feel to be their 
 due — should also be reminded that they cannot legally transfer
 
 20 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 debts, which they may have contracted, to their successors ; and 
 as they are personally responsible for the cost of anything they 
 may have ordered, I cannot advise them to undertake any serious 
 expenditure in behalf of the church till they have the funds in hand. 
 I have been insisting on this point for some time ; almost always 
 at the consecration of a new church, when things start without 
 any bad precedent having been established; and I am glad to 
 believe that the prudence of the advice is beginning generally to 
 be recognised. If it were universally acted upon, I do not believe 
 that any greater difficulty would be experienced than now in 
 raising the necessary funds. 
 
 I am pleased to learn that an ampler provision is now found in 
 parishes of inventories, terriers, and iron safes, the latter so neces- 
 sary for the proper custody of registers and other important 
 documents, though still more attention is needed in this respect. 
 A case was mentioned to me a week ago of a benefice under 
 sequestration, where it is believed that a portion of the income is 
 derived from a farm at a distance, but there appears to be no 
 evidence immediately accessible of the existence of such a farm. 
 The churchwardens know nothing of it, there are no documents in 
 the parish chest, the incumbent is in America, and if the Ecclesi- 
 astical Commissioners cannot supply the information a good deal 
 of embarrassment may be caused. This is only one illustration 
 of an unbusinesslike state of things, which I fear is widely pre- 
 valent, and which I earnestly entreat you, in your own parishes, to 
 get corrected. 
 
 Two grave cases of scandal which have occurred in other 
 dioceses during the present year — the one of an ordained clergy- 
 man of a character so scandalous as to draw from the judge when 
 he sentenced him the severe remark that he was one of the 
 greatest scoundrels he had ever met with, the other of an impostor, 
 professing to be a clergyman and officiating as such, whose 
 character was nearly equally scandalous, and who has just received, 
 as his due reward, the punishment of fourteen years' penal 
 servitude, have awakened people's attention to the need of much 
 greater circumspection in the choice of curates not personally 
 known, or of those to whom a parish is entrusted in the absence
 
 Encjagement of Curates. 21 
 
 of the incumbent, even for the briefest time, than is sometimes 
 exercised. Testimonials are so often given with a kindly 
 benevolence which either suspects no evil or is willing to throw a 
 cloak over it, that I am never inclined to accept them, unless I 
 know the circumstances of the case, as a sufficient guarantee, 
 without further careful personal inquiry. The impostor, to whom 
 I have referred, who had more than once tried to get into this 
 diocese, but had been as often baffled, at last succeeded in getting 
 into a parish under another false name, and it was only when he 
 had got matters into some trouble there, and had disappeared in 
 consequence, that I was made aware of his existence in our midst. 
 I must therefore most earnestly request that all my clergy, as a 
 matter of duty, will communicate with me before they actually 
 engage a new curate ; and that in all cases even of the briefest 
 temporary employment, if they do not personally know the 
 clergyman whom they employ, they will ask for the exhibition of 
 the letters of orders before they allow such a person to o-fficiate in 
 their parish. Considering the serious consequences involved, 
 for instance, in an unordained person solemnising marriages, we 
 are bound by a proper sense of duty to exercise this needful 
 vigilance and caution. 
 
 Perhaps I should add in this place, before passing on to 
 broader questions, that I regard every incumbent, whom I allow 
 to give a title as binding himself by a special responsibility to see 
 to that young curate's training. The first curacy is a kind of 
 apprenticeship to ministerial work. Many a young man has very 
 little idea of what this is without guidance ; and to turn a novice 
 loose upon a parish without the help of example or of counsel is 
 going the best way to spoil him for ever becoming a useful 
 clergyman ; for first impressions stamp themselves deep, and the 
 contagion of slovenliness or negligence is so subtle that it often 
 finds its way into hearts that once were animated with a 
 sincere desire to engage earnestly in the Master's service. I have 
 in more than one case marked this deterioration, sloth taking 
 the place of zeal, and a formal service at length satisfying the 
 idea of worship, and stifling the flame of true devotion in the 
 soul.
 
 22 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 I must acknowledge that I do not like the tone of many 
 modern advertisements for curacies in the clerical newspapers. 
 The very contractions adopted in them are almost hieroglyphical 
 and need an interpreter. For these young men, who ask to be 
 sent forth to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God to perishing 
 souls, seem mainly to concern themselves about good society, or 
 the eastward position, or Catholic ritual. And a sphere in which 
 best to learn the way to discharge the pastoral care is seldom on 
 their list of requirements. The late president ot the Congregational 
 Union, Dr. Macfadyen, of Manchester, addressing the other day 
 the students of Hackney College at the opening of their session, 
 spoke strongly on the decline of pastoral work, stating that "it 
 had almost become a lost art among Nonconformist ministers." 
 {The C/in's/ian, September 25, 1884.) Of course, I am not able 
 to verify this statement by any knowledge of what is found to be 
 a deficiency in other religious bodies than our own, but I do often 
 hear the complaint of incumbents that they cannot persuade their 
 curates to realise the importance of visiting the people in their 
 homes. My own experience — gathered, it is true, only in small 
 rural parishes — is that if you lose touch with the people in this point, 
 you lose it nearly altogether ; and that no eloquence in the pulpit, 
 even if you possess it, no activity in the mere organising work of 
 the parish, will compensate for neglect of a duty, which, as Dr. 
 Chalmers well said, more than anything else makes a " cliurch- 
 going people." Young men who look to be preferred by me had 
 better see to it that this part of their work is done diligently and 
 faithfully. I regard it as by far the most important part. 
 
 The then Primate, Archbishop Tait, having carried a motion 
 in the House of Lords on the 9th March, 1881, that a humble 
 address be presented to Her Majesty, praying her to appoint a 
 Royal Commission to inquire into the constitution and working 
 of the Ecclesiastical Courts as created or modified under the 
 Reformation Statutes of the 24th and 25th Henry VHI. and any 
 subsequent statute, a commission composed of 25 members ot 
 the highest eminence — 11 clerical and 14 lay — was nominated for 
 the purpose by the Queen's command on the i6th day of May in 
 the same year. The Commissioners held 75 meetings ; and finally
 
 The Ecclesiastical Courts Commission. 23 
 
 published their report — a most complete and exhaustive docu- 
 ment — in the late summer of 1SS3. The report was first considered 
 in a numerous assembly ot Churchmen by the Church Congress, 
 which assembled at Reading in the autumn of that year, and some 
 very exaggerated language was used as to what it was supposed 
 already to have effected. One speaker, more heated than the rest, 
 asserted that it had at least done one good thing — that it had torn 
 in pieces the Public Worship Regulation Act, and deprived Lord 
 Penzance of his usurped authority ; neither of which statements, 
 I need hardly tell you, had the slightest foundation in fact. The 
 subject was put down for discussion, and was discussed in our own 
 Diocesan Conference on October 17th, 1SS3, the Chancellor of 
 the diocese contributing an elaborate paper on the report itself 
 and its probable results ; and though I myself suggested that we 
 should be perhaps premature in passing any definite resolution on 
 the subject beyond thanking the Commissioners for their labours, 
 and a motion was made to that effect, it was lost, and the Con- 
 ference recorded its opinion that, generally speaking, the recom- 
 mendations of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission are satisfactory. 
 Since then the report has been discussed in the Convocations of 
 the two provinces, in the Church Congress at Carlisle, and in 
 every diocesan conference that has assembled ; and the difficulties 
 of any legislation proceeding upon a basis which should command 
 the assent of all parties in the Church — without which attempts at 
 legislation appear to me to be doomed to failure — have only 
 become more manifest. For the differences of opinion do not 
 touch the details of the report, which might admit of modification, 
 but its very fundamental principles. One party will not consent to 
 the episcopal veto, which can put an initial bar in the way of all 
 proceedings. Another party, and that a very vehement one, will 
 not hear of a body of lay judges to decide in cases ot appeal to 
 the Crown. In the face of this wide discrepancy of opinion, which 
 has been emphasised by the trenchant terms in which it has been 
 expressed, he must be a much more sanguine man than myself 
 who expects any satisfactory issue from legislation ; and though I 
 see that it is stated to be " an open secret " that a bill is in pre- 
 paration and will be shortly introduced into Parliament embodying
 
 24 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 the recommendations of the Commissioners, I have no knowledge 
 of the fact, and among such diversity of judgments still existing I 
 can hardly conceive its becoming a statute of the realm. Indeed 
 it is plain from some strong langnage that has been used by the 
 organ of an extreme party among us that the dissatisfaction of that 
 party against the present system of things is not so much against 
 the courts as against their judgments. " We must make it plain," 
 says the paper which represents this party, " that we will not give 
 place by submission, no, not for an hour, to such deliverances as 
 the Purchas and Ridsdale judgments, whatever the tribunal may be 
 from which they issue." I owe this quotation to a paper read 
 by Prebendary Ainslie, himself one of the commissioners, at the 
 recent Church Congress at Carlisle; and it fully justifies his 
 despondent remark that legislation is hopeless so long as such a 
 spirit prevails. 
 
 Before, however, passing away from a subject on which I feel 
 I can throw no light, and which is still the matter of such heated 
 controversy, I would ask your attention to the reservations with 
 whi«h the Archbishop of York accompanied his concurrence in the 
 report, and to some special and very important remarks in the 
 separate report of Lord Penzance, who, in consequence of illness, 
 was only able to attend fourteen meetings of the Commissioners. 
 The Archbishop in both of his reservations has the concurrence 
 of the Chief Justice of England. The first reservation has reference 
 to the episcopal veto on proceedings, from which he dissents ; the 
 second states what seems to me a still more important principle. 
 " Great evils," says the Archbishop of York, " have resulted from 
 legislation in the past. To prevent evils for the future, something 
 should be done to afford a means of direction and arbitration 
 without resort to the Courts. One such means is supplied by the 
 Prayer Book, in the reference to the authority of the bishop when 
 doubts or divers interpretations prevail. But unless the decisions 
 of the bishop are held to be binding till they are appealed against, 
 they are of no avail. Let the bishop have power to make an order 
 in all matters affecting the conduct of public worship, which shall 
 be binding until reversal by the Court of Appeal. Let there be 
 an appeal to the Archbishop's Court, either from such an order,
 
 The Ecclesiastical Courts Commission. 25 
 
 or from a trial in the Diocesan Court. Once make the bishop's 
 authority a reahty, 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." 
 Lord Penzance's opinion is practically the same. His whole 
 report is worth the most attentive consideration, but the passages 
 in it which specially struck me are these : — 
 
 " It is this personal power and jurisdiction of the bishops (\\ith any 
 safeguards that might lie thought necessary) that I would revive. Let all 
 complaints of the conduct of the clergy in respect of ritual or doctrine be made 
 to them ; let them have power to take evidence on oath, and institute what 
 inquiries they think right, and in the way they think right ; let them issue 
 any admonition they think fit to the offender, and if he does not obey let 
 them pass a sentence of suspension. An appeal from any such sentence might 
 be to the Provincial Court ; and on the other hand, if the bishop refuses to act, 
 or fails to act with effect, the complainant should be allowed to promote the 
 office of judge against the offender in the Provincial Court, the leave of the 
 iudge having been 'tirst obtained, whose duty it should be to refuse it if he 
 found the complaint to be frivolous, trivial, vexatious, or urged without 
 necessity. From the Provincial Court an appeal should lie in all cases to the 
 
 ultimate Court of Appeal In making the above suggestions for 
 
 the intervention of the bishops before a resort to the courts of law, I regard the 
 position of the bishops in these matters rather as that of superior officers 
 entitled to control and direct the clergy liy their commands than as merely 
 
 judges correcting them by censures of law It is also to be borne 
 
 in mind that every ordained priest has at his ordination taken a solemn oath to 
 obey his bishop. Great good would, I think, ensue from this conferring on 
 the bishops a large personal jurisdiction and discretion in composing disputes, 
 restraining excesses, and settling the differences between a cleigyman and his 
 parishioners without an appeal to the law, which should only be invoked when 
 the bishop has failed." 
 
 These utterances of persons so competent to form a judgment 
 deserve the careful consideration of those moderate and sober- 
 minded persons who desire to escape from difficulties which they 
 feel by a way which seems at once hopeful and constitutional ; and 
 if there is any fear that the liberties and rights of the clergy are 
 not sufficiently safeguarded in these proposals, it must be remem- 
 bered that in every case there is reserved to them an unfettered 
 right of appeal. At any rate these suggestions entirely commend 
 themselves to my own mind ; offer a solution of the problem
 
 26 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 more satisfactory than any other which I have seen ; and so, 
 having brought them under your notice, I pass on from a thorny 
 and troublesome subject. 
 
 I have several times seen it publicly stated that the bishops 
 have come to an agreement among themselves, in the exercise of 
 their discretion, not to allow any more ecclesiastical litigation till 
 the constitution of the ecclesiastical courts has been revised. I 
 do not believe that any such agreement has been either suggested 
 or arrived at. I can only say that such a proposal, from whomso- 
 ever emanating, has never reached me. The revision of the 
 constitution of the ecclesiastical courts is still a matter of the 
 dark, and possibly the remote, future, and any such resolve on the 
 part of the bishops would look like an attempt to postpone the 
 redress of all grievances felt or borne by the laity at the hands of 
 the clergy to the " Greek Kalends." Nor do I believe that the 
 discretion of the bishop, at any rate under the Public Worship 
 Regulation Act, is of the absolute and unchallengeable kind 
 which any such agreement would suppose. For if the bishop 
 thinks fit, after considering the whole circumstances of the 
 case, to veto further proceedings on the representation made 
 to him, he is to state his opinion in writing, and such state- 
 ment is to be deposited in the registry ot the diocese, and a 
 copy to be transmitted both to the person who has made the 
 representation and to the clergyman complained of; and I do not 
 feel at all sure whether a mandamus from the Court of Queen's 
 Bench might not compel him to proceed, if in the opinion ot the 
 Court the reasons for such veto were deemed insufficient. And 
 indeed it would be monstrous that the simple will of the bishop 
 should be employed to shelter manifest and defiant wrongdoers, 
 and to hand over the whole Church to lawlessness and anarchy. 
 For that would be the practical outcome ot such a course of action 
 on the part of the episcopate. 
 
 No doubt the bishops are most anxious — an anxiety in which I 
 fully share — that there should be no further litigation. What has 
 taken place has been a grave scandal and a disturbance of the 
 Church's peace and progress. But who have been the authors of 
 that scandal and that disturbance — the clergy who defied, or the
 
 Mr. Gladstone's Letter to the Bishop of St. Asaph. 27 
 
 bishops who endeavoured, according to the bounden duty of 
 their office, to maintain the law ? And if there is to be no further 
 litigation, we must look for that blessed result to the returning 
 good sense of those who feel that obedience is a nobler principle 
 of conduct than self-will, and that no adherence to a cherished 
 ceremonial, confessedly a matter of only secondary moment, is 
 worth the cost of the ]5eace of the Church by Avhich it is purchased, 
 and not to the bishops ignoring their duty and denying to 
 parishioners who may have a very just and serious grievance their 
 proper and lawful remedy. At any rate, speaking for myself only, 
 I cannot thus undertake to connive at lawlessness. 
 
 The Prime Minister has recently addressed a letter to the 
 Bishop of St. Asaph, which was publicly read in the conference of 
 that diocese, and to which, considering the source from which it 
 comes, repeated reference is likely to be made. Mr. Gladstone is 
 contemplating the contingency of disestablishment ; and putting 
 aside the question, as too vast and too polemical for him, whether 
 disestablishment would be disastrous or not, he affirms that there 
 is only one way in which it might come to be disgraceful. " That 
 one way parts into two. Disestablishment would be disgraceful if 
 it were due to the neglect, indifference, or deadness of the 
 Church; but this is a contingency, happily, so improbable that for 
 present purposes it may be dismissed without discussion. It 
 might also be disgraceful were it to arrive as a consequence cf 
 dissensions among the members of the Church ; and the particular 
 duty of Churchmen with regard to disestablishment is the duty 
 of taking care that dissensions from within shall not bring 
 Establishment to its end. The great maxim, /;/ omnibus cariias, 
 which is so necessary to temper all religious controversies, ought 
 to apply with a tenfold force to the conduct of the members of the 
 Church of England in respect to differences among themselves." 
 Upon this text, the Manchester Guardian, which has all through 
 taken a peculiar, though not an ungenerous, line in these disputes, 
 reads me a homily. " There is " — I quote the words of a leading 
 article of October 25 — " there is for the moment a lull in ecclesi- 
 astical controversy, but we need not travel back far if we desire to 
 seek out evidence of the evils which may be produced by a spirit
 
 28 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 of aggressive intolerance. In our own diocese we have recently 
 seen much more than enough of this militant Churchmanship. 
 This is the danger against which Mr. Gladstone's letter is directed. 
 He reminds Churchmen of the comprehensive character of the 
 Church. Her history has tended to bring within her limits a 
 great diversity of views. EvangeUcals, Broad Churchmen, High 
 Churchmen, and Ritualists are to be found within her capacious 
 fold, and if she is to be maintained on a firm basis, it is essential 
 that these apparently discordant elements should cultivate a spirit 
 of mutual forbearance. . . It seems inexplicable that it should be 
 necessary to enforce this doctrine of moderation and reserve. The 
 whole history of the Church is a protest against the narrow 
 exclusiveness which would seek to impress upon Anglicanism an 
 inflexible uniformity." 
 
 With the general spirit of these remarks I entirely agree, for I 
 have never been one animated by a temper of narrow exclusiveness, 
 or who has sought 'to impress upon Anglicanism an inflexible 
 uniformity.' On the contrary, I have always pleaded for greater 
 freedom, and have said that such freedom might safely be allowed 
 if men were only loyal to the spirit of our institutions and were not 
 constantly seeking for something behind them. And I have 
 always maintained that freedom ought never to be sought, and if 
 sought cannot be secured, by trampling on existing law. And the 
 writer of the article to which I have referred, though he quotes, yet 
 leaves wholly unnoticed the sentence with which Mr. Gladstone 
 qualifies the practical application of " the great maxim /// omnibus 
 carifas." " j\Ien ought, of course, in the first place to remember 
 that their right to differ is limited by the laivs of the system to which 
 they belong. But within that limit should they not also each of 
 them recollect that his antagonist has something to say ?" It is 
 not unlimited toleration for which the Prime Minister pleads, 
 which might carry us anywhere both in doctrine and in ritual, but 
 mutual forbearance within the limits " of the laws of the system to 
 which we belong." No language could better express the position 
 which I have always endeavoured to maintain. Far from wishing 
 to narrow the platform of the Church of England, I desire to widen 
 it. Though I am perfectly satisfied with the position as it is, and
 
 Church Patronage. 29 
 
 thank my God repeatedly that " He has set my feet in so large a 
 room," I would gladly satisfy, if the giving of somewhat more 
 freedom would satisfy, those who are less contented with it than 
 myself. But I demur to the principle that individual selfwill is to 
 be taken as the measure of obedience, and that to win freedom it 
 is necessary to adopt the methods of anarchy. There may have 
 been times when a revolution has seemed the only remedy for 
 wrong ; but neither in things political nor in things ecclesiastical 
 can it fairly be said to be the necessary remedy now. For 
 where is freedom unduly restrained ? In what department of 
 earnest Christian activity, in what that conduces to the true 
 reverence and beauty of Christian worship, in what that helps 
 to bring the soul nearer to its perception of its share in the 
 redemptive work of Christ, in what that relates to the pastoral 
 care, or the devoutest administration of Sacraments, or the 
 right to devise new methods of winning souls, can any of us 
 feel or fancy that he is working in fetters and that he is unable 
 to " make full proof of his ministry" ? Even Paul when claiming to 
 the fullest his " freedom from all men," recognised his obligations 
 to the "law of Christ" (i Cor. ix. 19 — 21), and where the freedom 
 is so large as it is in the Church of England, considerations for 
 the peace of that Church ought to count for something with 
 all who would be deemed her loyal and dutiful sons. In 
 Mr. Gladstone's wise and emphatic words let them " remember in 
 the first place, that they are limited by the laws of the system to 
 which they belong." And if they claim — as some do claim — the 
 right to interpret these laws for themselves, they are introducing 
 a principle which is subversive of the very idea of society, and 
 which would throw the ordered and regulated life of man back 
 into the chaos and anarchy of barbarism. 
 
 The question of Church patronage has now been occupying 
 the attention both of Churchmen and of the public at large for 
 many years. It has never, however, come so decidedly to the 
 front and made such an evident step in advance as in the present 
 year. The scandals of the existing system seem at last to have 
 touched the consciences of men. There is no wish to destroy 
 private patronage, which, as has been said, "secures a greater
 
 30 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 variety of qualifications than could be had if appointments to 
 benefices were entirely in the hands of the Bishops,'" but only to 
 secure parishes and people from its abuse, and to stop, or at least 
 to put some restraint upon, the sale of benefices to the highest 
 bidder, the scandal of which had become intolerable. There 
 were two bills before the House of Commons in the last session 
 dealing with the subject, the one brought in by Mr. E. A. Leatham, 
 the other by the Hon. E. Stanhope. Not unnaturally that of 
 Mr. Leatham went somewhat the furthest, as it proposed to 
 abolish not only the sale of next presentations but in great measure 
 the sale of advowsons. The bill of Mr. Leatham was debated, on 
 the proposal that it be now read a second time, on the i8th June, 
 and eventually, together with Mr. Stanhope"s bill, and an 
 important amendment of Mr Grey's enabling the parishioners to 
 veto the presentment to a benefice of any clergyman whom they 
 consider unsuitable (which, however, was lost by 141 votes to 83), 
 was referred to a Select Committee of the House, of which the 
 Right Hon. W. E. Forster was elected chairman. In the course 
 of the debate some notable things were said. It was stated by 
 Mr, Leatham that " two-thirds of the saleable patronage in the 
 Church had passed into clerical hands, and they were the 
 benefices so held that were chiefly advertised for sale in the 
 newspapers." He gave a noble reply to a question that he 
 supposed he might be asked : " Who was he, with his Liberationist 
 antecedents, who sought to build up the Church upon the very 
 side on which her defences were crumbling into ruin ? " To such 
 a question he would answer, '• I belong to the race of those 
 Nonconformists whom the Church persecuted in the olden time, 
 and who, if now in existence would not seek a nobler revenge 
 than in attempting to remove her abuses." The Home Secretary, 
 Sir W. V. Harcourt, said that " in now assenting to the second 
 reading, they were asserting the principle that the sale of livings 
 for money was, in point of fact, a violation of what was 
 regarded as a sacred trust ; was a thing which the House of 
 Commons condemned ; and that they desired to get rid of a prac- 
 tice which was most injurious in its operation, and could only be 
 considered as a grievous scandal to the Church of Endand.'
 
 Church Patronage. 31 
 
 The Select Committee, which consisted of 18 members, and met 
 five times, published their report in the beginning of August. It 
 is succinct and practical, and its general purport must be known 
 to most ot you. It may not, however, be out of place here to 
 record its principal recommendations. The Committee agreed — 
 (i) that the sale of next presentations be prohibited; (2) that 
 resignation bonds be abolished; (3) that donatives be turned 
 into presentative benefices ; (4) that if a fair method of com- 
 pensation be adopted, the sale of advowsons be prohibited, with 
 certain limitations, which however I need not specify; (5) that 
 in place of the present declaration against simony, declarations be 
 substituted, to be made by the clerk and the patron, that they 
 have not committed certain specific acts forbidden by law ; 
 (6) that no sales of patronage be valid unless the instrument 
 effecting them be registered in the diocesan registry ; (7) that in 
 all cases, before the institution of a presentee to a living, public 
 notice shall be given to the parishioners, and the parishioners 
 shall have sufficient opportunity of submitting to the bishop any 
 objections felt within the said parish to the appointment of the 
 presentee ; (S) that if a certain number of the parishioners object 
 to the presentee on the grounds of physical or mental incapacity 
 or moral delinquency, the bishop may after inquiry, if he think 
 fit, by a commission, refuse to institute the presentee ; (9) that 
 the power of bishops to refuse to institute a presentee on the 
 ground of unfitness in point of age or want of proper testimonials 
 be made clear ; ( i o) that patronage boards composed partly of 
 laymen be established in every diocese, with power to purchase 
 and hold advowsons and present to benefices ; and that the 
 churchwardens of any parish of which the benefice is vacant be 
 members of such patronage board /w hac vice. 
 
 While prepared to give a general approval to all these recom- 
 mendations, though not regarding all as of equal importance, I 
 consider that those which I have marked 7, 8, and 9, contain the 
 cardinal points of the whole question. In my first charge, 
 delivered in the year 1S72, I claimed for parishioners the riglit of 
 making themselves heard in preventing the presentation to a 
 Jbenefice of any clergyman who should be unfitted for the post
 
 32 BiSHor's Charge : 
 
 either on physical, mental, or moral grounds. It is simply intoler- 
 able that the persons most concerned in the issue should have no 
 voice in the appointment of their pastor. I do not think the 
 system of election of the minister by the parishioners would work 
 well. I have known instances in which it has worked miserably 
 both for the parish and for the clergyman elected ; but that the 
 people should have no power of making legitimate objections 
 heard and, if they can sustain them, of making them effective is, 
 as I have said, intolerable and indefensible. 
 
 For similar reasons I have never been able to see or feel the 
 objections to the Church Boards Bill drafted by Mr. Albert Grey 
 which are entertained towards it by some, if not by most, 
 of the clergy. I am convinced that the ' principle of the 
 bill is right, and if any defects can be shown in its working 
 provisions they can be removed or modified in the course 
 of that process which all measures undergo before they 
 become law. In the debate upon the bill in the Northern 
 Convocation on April 27, iSSi, I ventured to say: — "It 
 seems to me that in principle and aim the measure is sound 
 and good, for it proposes to give to parishioners — I prefer 
 this word to ' congregations ' — a legitimate voice with regard to 
 the services of the Church and the management of other affairs of 
 an ecclesiastical nature affecting the parish. I should think that 
 this was an object which every member of Convocation, who does 
 not wish to maintain what has been invidiously called the auto- 
 cracy of the clergy, would be ready to promote. I think the bill, 
 with some modifications in detail, may be made impotent for 
 mischief and potent for good. At the present time there is nothing 
 more miportant than to give the laity in our parishes a legitimate 
 voice in the management of their ecclesiastical concerns." And 
 if this was a truth needing to be spoken in 1881, it is still more 
 needful to be spoken in 1884. For whether we like it or not the 
 onward march of the democratic principle must be manifest to all. 
 If in political affairs, as the Archbishop of Canterbury said with so 
 much force in the House of Lords in the famous debate on the 
 second reading of the Extension of the Franchise Bill, it is neces- 
 sary to " trust the people," it is equally necessary to trust them in
 
 The Church Boards Bill. ^^ 
 
 ecclesiastical affairs. And I am convinced they may be trusted 
 without misgiving. There is no reason that I know for thinking 
 that the working classes as a body are hostile to the Church. I 
 believe they will be even more ready than some classes higher than 
 they in the social scale to remove abuses which are protected by 
 too many vested interests, and to make her more efficient for her 
 highest work, the ministration to souls. The Church Board, as 
 constituted by Mr. Albert Grey's bill, has no power to make 
 changes in the conduct of divine service or in any other matter of 
 an ecclesiastical nature except within the limits allowed by law ; 
 and if the incumbent disapproves of any such change he has a 
 power of appeal to the bishop of the diocese, whose decision is 
 final. Feeling so strongly as I do that the wishes and preferences 
 of the parishioners in these indifferent matters ought to be con- 
 sulted, I cannot consider that these provisions, so guc^^'ded, would 
 either lessen the proper influence of the incumbent, or in any 
 other way prove unfavourable to the interests of religion in a 
 parish ; and that parishioners need some such protection against 
 the whims and caprices of incumbents recent events in many 
 parishes in the land have only too clearly shown. If in a parish 
 which has been unhappily distracted by unwise courses, a little 
 heat should be evolved at the election of the Board, even that 
 would be better than acrimonious correspondence carried on in 
 the columns of partizan newspapers, or annual struggles and dis- 
 graceful scenes at the Easter Vestry. I have said that I do not 
 commit myself to all the details of the bill as at present drafted ; 
 but its principle has ray full approval. 
 
 The bill for legalising marriage with a deceased wife's sister is, 
 I fear, certain to re-appear. In the year 18S2 it was thrown out in 
 the House of Lords by a narrow majority of four in a house of 
 260. In 1883 the second reading was carried in the same House 
 by a majority of seven ; but, by a somewhat unusual course, the 
 opposition was renewed on the third reading, and the bill was 
 lost by a majority of five. This year a resolution in its favour 
 was moved by Mr. Broadhurst in the House of Commons and 
 carried by a large majority — 23S votes against 127 ; and the bill 
 was again introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Houghton,
 
 34 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 who has been its consistent advocate, but withdrawn on the ground 
 that time could not be found — it was not brought in till July — to 
 carry it through all the necessary stages. In 1883 both the 
 archbishops and twenty bishops voted against the bill ; and its 
 friends have never lost an opportunity of attributing its failure to 
 the prejudices of the ecclesiastical mind. But to have voted in 
 the same lobby with lay peers of such divergent views on other 
 subjects, but all united on this, as the Earls of Selborne, Cairns, 
 and Shaftesbury, Lord Coleridge, the Dukes of Argyll, Richmond, 
 and Somerset, the Marquis of Salisbury and the Earl of Carnarvon, 
 may at least clear the bishops from the imputation of prejudice or 
 priestly intolerance, and may lead people of fairer minds to 
 believe that they had a good reason for the vote they gave. For, 
 indeed, the change in the law would be followed by changes in 
 the social and family life of the country, the importance of which 
 has hardly been measured by those who clamour for it. The bill 
 has no principle in it ; breaks in upon the table of prohibited 
 degrees at a point where it is almost impossible that it should 
 stop ; by an arbitrary selection seeks to remove one restraint, 
 while it leaves others, which in the eyes of its promoters, if they 
 are consistent, must be quite as objectionable, as they are ; and 
 in the emphatic and pointed words of the Lord Chancellor, while 
 not constructing a new marriage law, destroys an old one. It 
 surely is not wise thus to tamper with the most sacred institution 
 of family life, and to run the risks which such tampering must 
 involve. Indeed on the second reading of the bill in 1882 one 
 noble lord boldly avowed that he should like to sweep away all 
 prohibitions founded upon the principle of affinity ; while a writer 
 in the Spectator newspaper, commenting on the debate in 1883, 
 ventured upon a yet wilder statement — " We should reply," says 
 this writer, " to Bishop Temple by saying that piecemeal legislation 
 is the best kind of legislation in cases where a specific grievance 
 is clearly seen and widely felt, without its being clearly seen that 
 there is any great principle on which it would be safe to base the 
 law that would remedy that grievance. Undoubtedly, as Lord 
 K-imberley said, a marriage law which rendered consanguinity the 
 only ground of objection — a marriage law which permitted a man
 
 Marriage with Deceased Wife's Sister. 35 
 
 to marry his stepmother or his stepdaughter, and a woman to 
 marry her stepfather or her stepson — would create an amount 
 of instinctive horror in the public mind which would be very 
 dangerous, if only on the ground that a marriage law which 
 permitted what the people at large think unnatural, must sink 
 
 in the respect of the people We are disposed 
 
 to think that if the law sanctioned adoption as a legal 
 step — as we wish it did — it ought to forbid marriages between 
 an adopted parent and an adopted child, so entirely is that 
 relation, even when only artificially taken up, one exclusive 
 of the passions. Still, with this one exception, why should 
 not all marriages of mere affinity be legalised, and those 
 finer instincts which, as we quite admit, revolt against marriages 
 between people who have once held to one another the position ot 
 even quasi-brother and sister, be trusted to hinder this kind of 
 marriage from becoming frequent." {Spectator, June 30, 1883.) 
 So we are advised to give up the principle on w^hich our marriage 
 law now rests, and while allowing marriage between a man and his 
 deceased wife's sister, to trust to the finer instincts of the people, 
 which the writer admits are revolted by this kind of marriage, to 
 hinder its becoming frequent. I confess I have no faith in these 
 finer instincts as a barrier against passion; and if the law is required 
 to give way in one point I do not see how it can maintain itself in 
 any. For the principle once broken down, passion may easily 
 create a new grievance, and we may yet live to witness the marriage 
 of a man with his stepmother, which St. Paul denounced as 
 " fornication not so much as named among the Gentiles." (i. Cor. 
 V. I.) It is not without cause that I say we are running risks in 
 thus rashly dealing with the existing law. But the main question 
 for us clergy to consider is, what must be our course if the change 
 we all but unanimously deprecate should ever become Jaw. I can 
 hardly suppose it possible that the clergy will be called upon to 
 solemnise these marriages, which would be contrary to the express 
 law of their Church ; and, indeed, in the bills hitherto proposed 
 the provision was that they should take place before the registrar. 
 But I scarcely think, if they were made valid by the law of the land, 
 we should be justified in treating persons who had contracted thorn
 
 36 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 as though they were living in adultery and had forfeited their right 
 to Christian privileges. The saddest result of the change, to my 
 mind, would be the element of confusion it would throw into 
 families, and the disturbance of those relations of " affection with- 
 out passion," which Lord Coleridge eloquently said need not to be 
 narrowed, but enlarged. On these grounds I shall still vote, as I 
 have always done, for the rejection of the bill, if it is re-introduced, 
 as it is certain to be, into the House of which I have the honour 
 to be a member. 
 
 To the movement in favour of temperance there has been 
 recently added a kindred movement in favour of purity. We have 
 in our own diocese the St. George's Association ; the Bishop of 
 Durham, I believe, has set on foot the White Cross Army, and 
 there is the organisation known as the Church of England Purity 
 Society. I fear, from all I know and hear of the state of 
 English society, there is to the full as much need of the one 
 movement as of the other. In the case of the poor the 
 condition of their dwellings, which is occupying the attention 
 of a Royal Commission, has no doubt much to do with the 
 sad results which we deplore. In the case of the rich and 
 well-to-do, where the vice is quite as rampant, its prevalence 
 can only be assigned to the innate foulness of the human 
 heart, developed and intensified by the thousand malignant 
 influences of the time. It was a frightful picture that the chaplain 
 of Clerkenwell Prison set before the Carlisle Congress of the extent 
 of the sale of impure and obscene publications; and this is a kind 
 of index of the extent of the evil. It is a delicate and difficult 
 subject to deal with, and yet I feel it must be dealt with 
 vigorously and promptly if the moral life of the nation is not to grow 
 hopelessly putrescent and corrupt. I do not presume to dictate 
 to you, my reverend brethren, what course you should pursue in 
 your parishes, but I am sure that it is an evil which, charged as you 
 are with the care of the souls of your people, you cannot afford to 
 disregard. For I fear there is no doubt that it is an evil which is 
 increasing among us ; beginning among young persons of both 
 sexes of the tenderest years, and branching out into manifold and 
 scarcely suspected forms.
 
 The Principle of Total Abstinence. 37 
 
 On the subject of temperance there is nothing new to be 
 said. I have recently, at the request of the Diocesan Committee ot 
 the Church of England Temperance Society, addressed a pastoral 
 letter to the clergy, urging them to favour the establishment of a 
 branch of the Society in their several parishes ; and the Secretary 
 of the Society writes me word that my letter has already pro- 
 duced considerable effect. A difficulty however, threatening to 
 be serious, has been brought under my notice, arising from what 
 I cannot but regard as the extravagant propagation of the principle 
 of total abstinence. One of my clergy writes to me that some of his 
 parishioners, who are rigid total abstainers, have for some time 
 past persistently refused to receive the cup at the Holy Communion 
 otherwise than simply taking it into their hands and returning it 
 untasted. Others will only receive in unfermented wine, which, 
 properly speaking, is not wine at all. And these are cases of 
 very serious difficulty, menacing not only the order of the Church, 
 but the very directions of our Saviour in the institution of the 
 Sacrament, and I really am at a loss to know how to deal with 
 them, It seems to me to argue a lack of faith in the Divine 
 presence not to believe that Christ will give us strength to resist 
 temptation when we are simply doing His will. We clergy have 
 no right, so far as I can see, to consecrate unfermented wine ; and 
 the only remedy that I can suggest in a case of exceptional 
 difficulty is to adopt the principle of spiritual communion, and if 
 those who approach the Lord's Table choose to deny themselves 
 the cup, to allow them to do so on their own responsibility. I am, 
 however, quite prepared to accept a better suggestion, if a better 
 can be found. I have had cases mentioned to me of sad relapses 
 into sin from this very cause — the very sight or smell of the 
 intoxicant reviving the old, only half-conquered desire — and these 
 cases apparently so well authenticated that I cannot dismiss the 
 danger as one purely imaginary ; and though I think that no one 
 ought to press his principle of abstinence so far as this, where he 
 has no reason to aj)prehend danger, there may be exceptional 
 instances where exceptional treatment is demanded. Even a 
 Sacrament of the Lord must not be turned into an occasion of 
 sin. We condemn the spirit of fanaticism ; but we should deal
 
 38 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 tenderly with the fear of being tempted beyond what we are able 
 to bear. 
 
 But it is time to bring this lengthy charge to a close. 
 
 The outlook of the immediate future, though not particularly 
 bright or hopeful, might yet be darker and more discouraging; and 
 there are within the horizon which bounds our view broad paths of 
 light where we can see our way clearly, and on which we can travel 
 securely and even confidently. The spirit of party, and the spirit 
 of lawlessness have lost much of their vehemence ; and if we 
 were delivered from the curse of unscrupulous newspapers, which 
 have reduced the practice of scurrilous invective and sarcastic 
 innuendo almost to a science, and which I think Churchmen do 
 not show their wisdom in encouraging, that vehemence would 
 probably be still further abated, and we should be able to see 
 things in their true relations, and not as they are distorted by the 
 media through which they now reach our eyes. For my own part 
 I have become so used to misrepresentations both of my conduct 
 and my motives that " none of these things move me," and I try 
 to pursue the course which my judgment and my sense of duty 
 indicate as the proper one, without caring much for either abuse 
 or praise. I have had difficulties to encounter, some of them I 
 thought at the time, thrown in my way without any sufficient 
 reason ; and the action which I have felt bound to take was only 
 taken with the greatest reluctance and under the conviction that I 
 could not escape the obligation laid upon me, as a bishop, to 
 maintain the law. The law at least justified me, and I can now 
 look back upon the past calmly and w-ithout resentment ; and only 
 trust that by the combined exercise of good feeling and good sense 
 1 may never be placed in a like difticulty again. It really does not 
 promote the interests of the Church or the cause of religion to 
 throw embarrassments in the way of a bishop ; and it always has 
 been and still is a matter of profound regret to me that I have 
 felt myself unable to co-operate with clerg}'men whom for their 
 character and their work I have every disposition to honour, 
 because they choose to take up an attitude in relation to the 
 laws of the Church and of the realm which seems to me quite 
 incompatible with our declaration of conformity and our vow of
 
 Art.MONITION OF NOXEMBER 25, 18S1. 39 
 
 canonical obedience, and which can only plunge the Church into 
 an anarchy where all laws cease, and where every man does only 
 what seems right in his own eyes. How far in the present 
 tendencies of society such an attitude is wise or safe or of good 
 example you can judge, my reverend brethren, as well as I. 
 
 My Admonition of November 25, 1881, was, with so few 
 
 exceptions as hardly to require notice, received by the clergy with 
 
 the respect which, I will venture to say, was due to it. It was a 
 
 step taken not without much previous consideration and care. It 
 
 received the approval — the all but unanimous approval — I think 
 
 there were only three dissentients, and those not pronouncedly 
 
 dissentient out of a body of forty-two — of a Council composed of 
 
 the Deans and Canons of the Cathedral, both residentiary and 
 
 honorary, the Rural Deans and Chancellor of the diocese, whom I 
 
 convened to consider its terms before solemnly promulgating it to 
 
 the clergy in Synod formally called. I required the clergy to 
 
 consider the ritual of the Cathedral church, as then publicly 
 
 practised and allowed, the standard of the maximum of ritual for 
 
 the diocese. In that ritual, neither what are called " the 
 
 vestments " were worn, nor were candles lighted ceremonially, nor 
 
 was the chalice mixed nor incense used, nor, so far as I was aware, 
 
 was anything done or attempted which went beyond the limits 
 
 allowed by law. If this standard had been frankly accepted by 
 
 all, it would have secured a service of worship edifying, reverent 
 
 beautiful ; and it would have cut off all pretext for litigation and 
 
 all reasonable grounds for suspicion or heartburning. It was 
 
 frankly accepted by almost all. In two or three instances it 
 
 reduced a ritual which had gone beyond lawful bounds, and I dare 
 
 say caused some little sacrifice of feeling to those who made the 
 
 reduction, but who, I trust, have been repaid by the consciousness 
 
 that the sacrifice was made for the sake of the higher interests of 
 
 the Church. But in far more numerous cases it has helped 
 
 clergymen who had long been waiting for an opportunity, to raise 
 
 their services from the level of baldness, if not of slovenliness, to 
 
 something more akin to decency and order ; and I believe that 
 
 the general result has been a considerable increase of the spirit of 
 
 reverence and devotion, so far as these can be influenced by
 
 40 Bishop's Charge : 
 
 external things, in the congregations of the diocese. And though 
 I see it still pleases hostile critics in newspapers to describe the 
 experiment as a complete failure, to those who know the actual 
 results it will seem to have been a success far beyond what I dared 
 to expect or even hope for. 
 
 In -times of excitement like these in which we live it has been 
 said that even a midshipman rashly firing oif a pistol in a foreign 
 seaport might kindle the flames of war which might devastate half 
 a continent ; and it is impossible to say to what extent the future 
 peace and even existence of the Church as a national institution 
 depends upon the character and conduct of the clergy. Scandals 
 are too frequent among us. Here it is a clergyman liquidating with 
 his creditors and his benefice sequestered to pay his debts. There 
 it is an incumbent suspended for drunkenness. Elsewhere a parish 
 is kept in continual hot water, and the Easter Vestry is a scene of 
 uproar almost as great as that which took place in the theatre at 
 Ephesus, because unwise or unlawful innovations have been intro- 
 duced and the parishioners find their wishes and their preferences 
 studiously made light of or ignored. And all these things perceptibly 
 weaken the Church, and make her less able than she ought to be 
 to give an answer to the gainsayers. At the same time, I do not 
 believe there ever was a time when real work was more 
 appreciated and faithful pastors more honoured. The position 
 that many of the clergy of this diocese hold in the hearts of 
 their people is a delightful thing to contemplate ; is the very 
 bulwark and strength of the Church. If it is not so everywhere 
 it is because it has been forfeited for reasons only too obvious — by 
 want of temper, or lack of prudence, or discerned differences 
 between the life and the preaching, or inattention to duty, or the 
 mistrust that is always gendered when it is felt that the man's 
 heart is not in his work. Men recognise that their minister 
 cares for other things more than he cares for them ; and so the 
 warm Lancashire heart grows cold, and congregations become 
 thin, and help, once liberally proffered, is by degrees withdrawn, 
 and the whole organisation of the parish suffers ; for " the head 
 is sick and the whole heart faint." I hope the thought that, 
 happen what may, our own individual interests are likely to be
 
 The Proper Work of the Church. 41 
 
 secured, does not prevent our taking that larger thought and 
 care for the future interests of the great institution to which we 
 belong, which, if we are loyal to it, and care more for the Church 
 than for ourselves, we ought to take. In a vivid description of a 
 battle— I think it was one of the seafights in the harbour of 
 Syracuse — Thucydides characterises the ardour of the combatants 
 in some such terms as these : " Each thought things were going 
 badly in that part of the action in which he was not himself 
 engaged." My counsel would have a reverse effect to this. I would 
 say, see how the battle against infidelity and sin is faring at that post 
 where Christ has placed you. See that your own loins are girded 
 and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like men who wait for 
 the coming of their Lord. We are each of us, as it were, 
 compassed around with a great cloud of witnesses, and they are 
 neither unkindly nor unconcerned. If we fail to hold our post, 
 either through negligence or cowardice, the effect is felt far beyond 
 our own parish or our own diocese. Men point at us as though 
 we were but samples of the generally decaying forces of Chris- 
 tianity — as though the Church's defenders were all equally 
 nerveless and panic-stricken. And, above all, let us never turn 
 our eyes or our thoughts away from the Church's great purpose in 
 the world, which is, not to present to men's minds the imposing 
 spectacle of a vast endowed and established institution, but to be 
 a messenger to weary souls of the good tidings of the Kingdom, to 
 conquer the world to Christ, and to bring the Gospel of a Father's 
 love home to the hearts of men.
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Miscellaneous Statistics collected from Returns to Articles 
 of Enquiry. 
 
 Instirance of Chirches. — In the archdeaconry of Manchester 
 there are five churches wholly uninsured ; in Blackburn ten ; in 
 Lancaster ten. From two parishes there is no return. Many 
 more churches are very inadequately insured. One, which I have 
 heard cost ;^2 2,000, is only insured for ;^i,ooo ; another, which 
 must have been equally costly, for ^2,000 ; another, which would 
 probably cost ^5,000 to rebuild, is insured for ^100 ; of two 
 others, the chancel only is insured. 
 
 Inventories and Iron Safes. — In the archdeaconry of Man- 
 chester there are 118 churches which have no inventory; 41 no 
 iron safe. In Blackburn those figures are respectively 84 and 29 ; 
 in Lancaster 65 and 12. The Form of Inventory and Terrier, 
 promised by the Chancellor, and for which many of the clergy say 
 they are waiting, will be published in the Diocesan Directory for 
 next yean Of course, it will need adaptation to the particular 
 circumstances of each parish. Where iron safes exist they are 
 often described as damp and unfit for the custody of documents, 
 generally because they have been built into the wall, or are other- 
 wise badly placed. This is a matter that should be seen to. 
 
 In some parishes dissatisfaction is expressed at the frequent 
 interments of non-parishioners. The church -wardens have the 
 remedy in their own hands, as such interments cannot legally take 
 place without their consent.
 
 II. 
 
 There appear to be only three parishes in the diocese in which 
 the Holy Communion is administered less than twelve times a 
 year. In most parishes it is administered much more frequently 
 than this. 
 
 There appears to be a good deal of illegal dealing with seats. 
 In one parish the return states that persons have put brass-plates 
 on the doors of their pews, thus appropriating them without any 
 pretence of legal right. Church-wardens ought not to allow these 
 invasions of the rights of the parishioners. In several parishes 
 there exists an illegal custom of buying and selling pews. In one 
 parish the " free and open " system is declared to be a failure. 
 
 I must thank the clergy and the rural deans generally for the 
 pains they have taken to make these returns complete. In spite 
 of the opinion of one incumbent — who declined to answer them 
 in respect of his own parish — that the inquiries are " illegal, 
 unauthorised, and many of them silly," I beg to assure the clergy 
 that their conscientious and careful replies have given me a body 
 of information relating to the diocese which I could hardly have 
 acquired in any other way.
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Lay Helpers Association for tlie Diocese of Manchester. 
 
 On the 17th October, 1883 — the first day of the Session — the 
 Manchester Diocesan Conference passed the following resolution : — 
 
 "That the following Committee be appointed to cany out the Resohition 
 of the Conference of 13th October, 18S1 : — The Dean, three Arch- 
 deacons, Revs. H. B. Hawkins, F. C. Woodhouse, Canon Stowell, 
 Canon Machire, Canon Allen, J. D. Kelly, J. H. Rawdon, W. 
 Champneys, H. R. Heywood, A. J. J. Cachemaille, J. M. Elvy, 
 J. H. Stanning, J. A. Atkinson, Messrs. Ralph Fletcher, Junr., F. J. 
 Grant, H. H. Howorth, T. C. Ilorsfall, G. Milner, G. Harwood, 
 with power to add to their number, and after consultation with the 
 Bishop, to lay down a Scheme of Association of Lay Helpers and 
 take measures to carry it into effect." 
 
 The Committee met on October 21st, 27th, 30th, 1S84 — the 
 Dean (Dr. Oakley) in the chair — and they added to their 
 number Messrs, W. P. FuUagar, Herbert Philips, J. G. C. Parsons, 
 D. B. Hewitt, W, W. Taylor, F. H. Leedham, Oliver Heywood, 
 W. F. Ecroyd, M. P., J. Taylor, W. H. Worrall. They have 
 drawn up the following Scheme, which is founded on the Scheme 
 of the Committee appointed by the Conference of 188 1 : — 
 
 I.— The Lay Helpers in the diocese of Manchester shall be organised 
 under the Bishop, to assist the Clergy, especially those of poor and 
 populous parishes, in various branches of parochial work, under the 
 direction of the Clergyman of the Parish, and an association shall be 
 formed, of which the Bishop of Manchester shall be the President,
 
 under the name of the "Lay Helpers Association for the Diocese 
 of Manchester." The Association shall include two branches (i) 
 for men, (2) for women. 
 
 II. — The Association shall consist of: — 
 
 Lay persons, being communicants, willing to assist the Clergy 
 in parochial work, who shall be recommended by a Clergyman and 
 two Lay Communicants, or nominated by the Bishop. 
 
 III. — The Association shall be under the direction of a Committee, con- 
 sisting of the Bishop, as President, the Dean and thiee Archdeacons, 
 ex officio, eight Clergymen, and eighteen Laymen, in the first instance 
 appointed by the Bishop, with a Treasurer and one or more Secretaries 
 appointed by the Committee. After the tirst appointment by the 
 Bishop, one half of the Clerical and Lay Members of the Committee 
 shall be elected by the Members at the Annual Meeting, and the 
 other half nominated by the Bishop. The Diocese shall be worked 
 in Districts, consisting of one or more Rural Deaneries as the Com- 
 mittee may arrange ; in each of which Districts the Committee shall 
 appoint a Secretary. 
 
 There shall be a Correspondent for each Parish, to be appointed 
 by the Members in the Parish, or, failing such action, by the 
 Committee. 
 
 IV.— It shall Ije a principle of this Association : — 
 
 (i) That the Lay Helpers meet annually at least, at convenient 
 
 centres, wdien there shall be a Service, with Holy Communion, 
 
 and an Address. 
 (2) That opportunities be afforded to the Members from time to time 
 
 of conference and instruction. 
 
 V. — (i) No payment nor subscription shall be required of Members. 
 
 (2) There shall be at all Services of the Association a collection in 
 
 aid of the expenses. 
 
 (3) There shall be in this Association Honorary Members, unable to 
 
 take definite work, who shall be subscribers of not less than One 
 Guinea, or donors of not less than Five Guineas.
 
 V. 
 
 (4) The Secretaries shall he authorised to receive donations or sub- 
 scriptions, large or small, from Members or others. 
 
 VI, — A Register shall be kept of the names and addresses of Members, 
 showing what description of work each unemployed Member may be 
 willing to undertake, and also the place and nature of the woik in 
 which each employed Member is engaged. 
 
 It was resolved that the Chairman and Secretary be requested 
 to wait upon the Bishop and to lay before him the Scheme of the 
 Committee for his approval, and respectfully to suggest that, in 
 the event of his approving of it, he take the opportunity of his 
 Visitation Charge to commend it to the Diocese, and at once 
 proceed to nominate the Committee. 
 
 The following are the Members of the Committee : — 
 
 Ex- Officio. 
 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop, President; 
 The Very Rev. the Dean ; 
 
 The Venerable the Archdeacons of Manchester, Black- 
 burn AND Lancaster. 
 
 Nominated by i/ie Bishop. 
 
 Rev. Canon Kelly. 
 
 Rev. Canon Maclure. 
 
 Rev. Canon Stowell. 
 
 Rev. A. J. J. Cachemaille. 
 
 Mr. R. Fletcher, Junr. 
 
 Mr. W. R Fullagar. 
 
 Mr. S. Garnett. 
 
 Mr. F. J. Grant. 
 
 ]Mr. G. Harwood. 
 
 Dr. Hewitt. 
 
 Mr. O. Heywood. 
 
 Mr. T. C. HORSFALL. 
 
 Mr. H. H. Howorth. 
 
 Rev. W. Champneys. 
 Rev. J. M. Elvy. 
 Rev. H. B. Hawkins. 
 Rev. J. H. Rawdon. 
 
 Mr. R. H. Jovnson. 
 Mr. F. H. Leedham. 
 Mr. J. W. McConnel. 
 Mr. Geo. Milner. 
 Mr. J. G. C. Parsons. 
 Mr. Herbert Philips. 
 Mr. W. W. Taylor. 
 Mr. W. H. Worrall. 
 Mr. J. M. Yates.
 
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