"LI E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 U N IVER.SITY 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 2/ 
 
 THE BISHOPS ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 Diocesan Conference, Worcester, 
 
 1902. 
 
 WITH THE BISHOP'S COMPLIMENTS. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM : 
 THE MIDLAND EDUCATIONAL COMPANV, LIMITED.
 
 ovtt'&Ut ^iattsan (&anhxmu. 
 
 THE BISHOP'S ADDRESS. 
 
 I. — My brethren of the clergy and of the laity — after seven 
 months of experience of being Bishop of Worcester, I must con- 
 fess that I address myself to the task of speaking for the first 
 time to the gathered representatives of this diocese, which has 
 received me with such generous kindness, with some feeling of 
 disappointment. I had hoped — vainly as it now appears — that 
 after seven months of hard work I should feel to have emerged 
 from the preliminary difficulties — the difficulties which beset the 
 beginning of any task of administration — and should see my 
 problem before me as something most weighty and serious 
 indeed, but not altogether impracticable. But I am very far 
 from such a position. The work required of a bishop of this 
 diocese, if it is to be performed with any approach to tolerable 
 adequacy, does seem to me impracticably vast. When people 
 think of the work of a bishop they are apt to think chiefly of the 
 occasions when he acts or speaks in pubHc — the confirmations, 
 ordinations, church-openings, sermons, meetings, etc. But, in 
 fact, these opportunities for moving about the diocese bring with 
 them a good deal of refreshment and very often the grateful 
 opportunity for preaching the Gospel; and the severer work lies 
 behind them. A bishop means a superintendent ; and as such 
 he ought to have a real knowledge of the parishes — in the case of 
 this diocese (speaking roughly) almost 500 parishes with an 
 average population of nearly 3000 people. He ought to know 
 the clergy ; the special character and needs of each place ; the 
 efforts that are being made, or that ought to be made, to con- 
 solidate or extend the work of the Church ; the exceptional 
 hindrances or failures or scandals ; the more important disputes 
 and controversies ; he ought to attend to the cases where his 
 attention is legitimately claimed, and to those others where it is 
 not claimed or wanted, but is needed. Schemes of all kinds, 
 from the addition of a memorial brass or window to a church, or 
 a case of disputed dilapidations, upwards to very much more 
 important measures, material and spiritual, require his personal 
 intervention before they can proceed. To a great many of these 
 matters— perhaps to almost all of them — the bishop, unless he 
 has had a very special training, is entirely strange. He has to
 
 learn his business while he is doing it. And the burden, as it 
 has seemed to me, is such as to crush the life and spirit out of a 
 man before he fairly begins. I am not saying this because I wish to 
 complain. I have no wish to shrink from working hard. And 
 a man's responsibility is a limited one — limited among other 
 things by the available working hours. But I am saying what I 
 am saying deliberately, for this reason. Because I wish to im- 
 press upon you, if I can, that it is bad policy — utterly bad 
 policy — in any church, in any responsible society, to lay so 
 exaggerated a burden upon its chief officer, as — unless he is a 
 giant in physical, mental, and spiritual capacity — to make it 
 impossible that the work can be properly done. I do not think 
 that an episcopal system which does not admit of real episcopacy 
 — that is, effectual supervision — is being given a fair chance. I 
 say this with the profoundest feeling of its importance. We have 
 had great spiritual revivals in the century past — evangelical, 
 catholic, and ethical. Their main tendencies were supplementary 
 to one another, and in no necessary antagonism. They stirred 
 the energies of the Church, and they brought to the front in doing 
 so, as every revival of life in an old community must do, a 
 peremptory requirement for the readjustment of the old ecclesias- 
 tical machinery. Such readjustment might, I believe, have 
 enabled us to attain some result in the whole corporate hfe of the 
 Church adequate to the greatness of the spiritual impulses which 
 had been at work amongst us. But the mere weight of the inert 
 mass, aided by a good deal of wilfulness and narrowness in 
 ecclesiastical parties, have too long delayed such readjustments. 
 Meanwhile the religious revivals have been dying down, and the 
 ecclesiastical machinery has been left utterly inadequate for the 
 work which they had helped to create. I do not want to go into 
 statistics this morning, but for this diocese they seem to indicate, 
 as far as they go, that in a growing population we are losing 
 ground. I am quite sure that a large part of the reason is because 
 we have not allowed our recovered spiritual force to act upon our 
 antiquated and worn-out machinery. 
 
 What would be the result of appointing a Cabinet minister, 
 perhaps with not more than the general experience of a politician, 
 to the headship of some great Government department — say the 
 Board of Works, or the Ministry of Education — without any 
 appreciable staff of permanent officials and secretaries on the 
 spot to help him, so that he was left in the great majority of 
 subjects to inform himself, as to how to act, by laborious corres- 
 pondence with subordinate officials living at a distance, or 
 individuals whom he may learn to be trustworthy and well 
 informed, or the chiefs of other departments who have been 
 longer in office ? The result would be, of course, disastrous. 
 But I have often recently wondered whether the experience of 
 your new bishop is not parallel to such a situation. The business 
 
 . UIUC '
 
 he has got to do is, of course, not as great as that of a whole 
 Government department which is concerned with the whole 
 country. But his permanent officials are scattered over the two 
 counties. (To the one whom I may constantly summon to my 
 elbow, Mr. J. H. Hooper — the Diocesan Registrar and my legal 
 secretary — I wish to tender my cordial thanks for the ready help 
 he has constantly given me.) He must write letters to Arch- 
 deacons, Rural Deans, and to the Chancellor, and most carefully 
 guard himself from falling into the hands of the first or most 
 irrepressible voluntary informant who presents himself, or from 
 acting on inadequate information. Meanwhile, on matters small 
 and great, he is constantly being told — in a phrase which I can 
 never hear without its sending a shiver through me — " It must 
 be as your Lordship pleases." We leave too much — altogether 
 needlessly much — to the solitary judgment of an individual, who, 
 while he is learning his business, has a disagreeably abundant 
 opportunity for making mistakes. 
 
 There is no necessity for conducting the government of a 
 diocese in this way. It is not certainly the catholic ideal of the 
 episcopate. I am not trying now, however, to suggest remedies ; 
 I am only trying to help you, as a diocese, to realise the peril of 
 the situation ; to realise that, without necessity, you lay by far 
 too much upon the solitary discretion of an individual, and 
 make by far too iittle provision for continuous or corporate 
 administration. And in the case of this diocese it is necessary 
 — imperatively necessary—that the area of adminisfcration should 
 be reduced. A man might well hope to be the bishop of the 
 area of the Archdeaconry of Worcester. But here a man is 
 called to be the bishop of three areas, corresponding to the Arch- 
 deaconries of Worcester, Coventry, and Birmingham, which are, 
 as you all know, strangely distinct in interests and sympathies. 
 And to be to Birmingham — to take that example only — anything 
 at all like what a bishop ought to be, according to any ideal of 
 the episcopate, a man should be a citizen and a churchman of 
 Birmingham, looking at the local Church from Birmingham as a 
 centre, over the area which it in fact dominates. And this a man 
 cannot be unless he live there. 
 
 There are many things, gentlemen, which it would be prema- 
 ture for me to say. But with the fresh experience full upon me I 
 want to say this one thing. It is, I am convinced, very bad 
 policy on the part of any society to lay upon its chief officer the 
 sort of burden of work which is calculated to crush heart and 
 spirit out of him before he has begun — the burden of a work 
 which he cannot hope to fulfil with any tolerable degree of 
 adequacy — the burden of a work which so crowds up his life with 
 details as to leave him no time nor energy for thinking what the 
 Church or Diocese as a whole— to say nothing about the cultivat- 
 ing and enlarging of his own mind — the burden of a work,
 
 moreover, which shows every sign of growing as one makes further 
 acquaintance with it. This is the sort of burden not to stimulate, 
 but to overwhelm and to demoralise a man. There is no real 
 reason why it should not be reduced. And it will matter little 
 that one or two individuals should suffer in the process if the 
 diocese as a whole can be roused to alter the situation. 
 
 II. — But now to take the situation as it is. I have determined 
 to live at Worcester, not at Hartlebury, — to the regret I know of 
 many people, and to my own deep regret whenever I have 
 visited in summer its beautiful garden. But I desired, if 
 possible, to live in a place less inconvenient for moving about the 
 diocese and more accessible to the clergy. Again I felt, and I 
 still feel, sure that a Bishop ought to be at or near his Cathedral. 
 Once again — dealing as he must daily with a great variety of 
 legal points — I felt and, after my first experience, I feel still more 
 strongly, that he ought to have his legal secretary at his elbow. 
 These, as well as other motives, led to my approaching the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners with a view to seeing whether the 
 permanent transference of the Bishop's residence to Worcester 
 were practicable. The Commissioners finally passed a resolution 
 expressing an abstract readiness to sanction the sale of Hartlebury 
 Castle. But they have no power to sanction the sale in fact, 
 unless another residence is available for the Bishop or money 
 enough to provide one. These conditions not being fulfilled, or 
 likely to be fulfilled at present, nothing is being done, or is to be 
 done in the immediate future. The Castle remains legally with 
 the Bishop of Worcester. But a great deal has been done for my 
 relief. I was fortunate in an opportunity to lay my case before 
 four of the chief laymen in this county : Lord Beauchamp, Lord 
 Cobham, Lord Dudley, and Lord Windsor, on the occasion of 
 the Yeomanry Camp at Madresfield. Somewhat against the 
 sentiment of most of them, I think, a plain statement of my 
 reasons against living at Hartlebury convinced them that under 
 present circumstances I was right in my desire, and they very 
 generously agreed to relieve me of the burden of keeping up the 
 house, taking the cost of its maintenance on their own shoulders 
 and leaving me a Bishop, houseless, but (so far) happy. They 
 ask me to say that Sir John Holder has since joined this body of, 
 (shall I say ?) Castle Wardens, and they would be glad of some 
 more to help them. And I am also requested to say that the 
 financial responsibility is not distributed equally among them. I 
 am deeply grateful for the relief they have given me. Meanwhile, 
 I have secured the only fairly suitable house I could find in or 
 close to Worcester, and I have called it Bishop's House ; but I 
 have never intended it as a permanent residence for the Bishop 
 of the diocese. 
 
 Thus I find myself housed in the place most convenient for 
 my work as Bishop of Worcester. In beginning to do it I have
 
 leaned very heavily on the Archdeacons and some of the Rural 
 Deans and other officers of the diocese, who have been most 
 generous and ungrudging in the help they have given me. And I 
 shall continue to make a claim on them which will not diminish. 
 But most of all upon the Bishop of Coventry. I could not easily put 
 into words my sense of what the diocese owes to him : still less 
 of what 1 have owed to him. And I wish to take this opportunity 
 to give notice that, after seeking for some months painfully, but 
 ineffectually, to make time to deal with the various problems con- 
 nected with the recognised Lay Readers in this diocese, including 
 the Church Army Captains, I have handed the whole matter over 
 to the Bishop of Coventry — with his consent — so that he will be 
 the Bishop of the Lay Readers for all intents and purposes. Of 
 course, I am sorry for this — for my own sake ; but the work, I am 
 sure, will be most efficiently done. He will also — in spite of a 
 mistaken notice in this month's Magazine — undertake the drawing 
 up of the Confirmation List for next year, and all communications 
 on the subject should be sent to him. 
 
 As for what remains, I think it is the duty of the Bishop to get 
 to know the clergy as soon as possible ; and I have arranged to 
 occupy almost all October in going round the Rural Deaneries of 
 the Worcestershire Archdeaconry, hoping to do the same for the 
 other Archdeaconries as soon as I can. I would ask of the 
 clergy, as far as possible, to let me meet them all at the appointed 
 centres. In general — I will do my best \ but I shall have to lay 
 a great claim upon the patience of all of you before \ can be said 
 even fairly to have explored the work that has to be done. Mean- 
 while, many important problems and projects must wait in- 
 definitely. A man must know the situation as it stands, and the 
 men with whom he has to deal, before he can profitably con- 
 template new departures. 
 
 To my predecessor I would renew the thanks, which I have had 
 occasion to pay before, for his uniform kindness. Experience of 
 the last seven months has deepened my admiration for all bishops 
 who manage to administer dioceses like this. Now that he has 
 laid down the burden, we wish him many years of quiet and happy 
 retirement in his new home, whence he can look into his old 
 diocese and pray, I hope and do not doubt, for his old friends 
 and his perplexed successor. 
 
 Among recent losses, we deplore Canon Melville, whose hearty 
 friendliness, keen wit, and persistent vigour I have associated with 
 the Cathedral at Worcester since, 15 years ago, I first came here to 
 lecture to the clergy. We respect his motives in resigning when 
 he was no longer able to fulfil his duties. Those who care for the 
 diocese and the Cathedral will have been praying earnest prayers 
 that the advisers of the Crown may recommend a worthy 
 successor — a man who is free to give himself wholly, and with 
 unimpaired vigour, to the great opportunities which the canonry
 
 X 
 
 affords for giving spiritual and intellectual help to the diocese. From 
 the other side of the diocese we have lost a learned mathematician 
 and physicist in Dr. Watson, also by resignation. And death — 
 sudden death — has taken from us Mr. Chesshire (whom again I 
 associate of old with the clergy lectures in the Chapter House) 
 from Worcester ; and Dr. Nicholson from Leamington. The 
 death of Mr. Taylor, of Littleton, leaves a sad vacancy — and I 
 would commemorate his services, as in other matters, so also in 
 aid of the Missionery Studentship Association, of which a word 
 later. Besides these, I must commemorate Dr. Robinson, the 
 late Rector of St. Martin's, Birmingham ; Mr. Heskett-Biggs, of 
 Ettington ; Mr. E. Morley, Master of Leycester Hospital, 
 Warwick ; Mr. Raymond, of Upton Snodsbury ; Mr. Saunders, of 
 Peopleton ; Mr. Faulkner, Curate of Hallow. Of the laity Colonel 
 Victor Milward, Mr. Martin Curtler, and Mr. John Homer 
 Chance are, I believe, among the chief of those we have lost. If 
 there are wounding omissions in these commemorations, you will 
 attribute it to the ignorance of a new-comer, and not to ill-will. 
 
 There are many new arrivals to welcome. I cannot welcome 
 them all by name, but I would say one word of gratitude to the 
 body of trustees who have given to Birmingham and the diocese 
 the Rev. John W. Diggle. 
 
 With regard to the programme of this Conference, you have it 
 before you. I am going to use what remains of the time which I 
 can reasonably claim, to speak upon the education question, very 
 briefly, and upon the training and supply of clergy. As to the 
 other subjects, I propose to speak a word by way of summing up 
 each discussion. In the debates I intend to keep speakers to 
 their time, save and except that the introducer will be allowed, 
 where he requires it, twenty minutes. The seconder will have 
 ten minutes and the selected speakers. After that it will be 
 at my discretion. There is a sufficient variety of opinion on the 
 education question to make it necessary to secure more time for 
 its discussion. I am, therefore, going to close in one hour the 
 debate on the supply of clergy, and take two hours for the 
 Education Bill, the motion of Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Pinchard rank- 
 ing as an amendment to the Bishop of Coventry's resolution. 
 
 III. — As to the Education Bill, I want to make three points : — 
 
 First, the reason why the religious difficulty bulks so large in 
 the field of ( ducation is because so small a proportion of the 
 nation really take an interest in education at all. If the average 
 good citizen really cared about the provision of a better and 
 more uniform system of national education, I am convinced that 
 the religious difficulty would not prove at all insoluble. As it is, 
 it is those persons who are specially concerned in the religious 
 problem who are allowed to occupy the field, in default of the 
 nation as a whole. 
 
 Secondly, the best contribution we can make to the solution
 
 of the question is to reiterate, as clearly and succinctly as possible, 
 what is our demand as a religious body. It is this : That in 
 schools provided by the Church there should be the fullest 
 liberty to teach religion to the children of the Church on the basis 
 of the Catechism, by means of a teacher chosen by the Church, 
 as part of the ordinary school curriculum. And what we ask for 
 our schools, we ask for all those provided by other religious 
 denominations Let the State and local authority vigorously test 
 and regulate the general education, and vigorously require that 
 the teacher appointed by the denomination should be educa- 
 tionally qualified. But it must not show any preference for what 
 are called undenominational, over denominational schools. There 
 are only two bases on which religious education can now be 
 given. It can be given on the basis and by the standard of a 
 recognised religious society ; or it may be left to the individual 
 proclivities or opinions of individual teachers. The day is past 
 when the State could dream of issuing a religious standard and 
 requiring the teachers to conform to it. The alternative, I repeat, 
 is the religious standard of a denomination, or the accidental 
 opinion of a particular teacher. Now, we claim that the former 
 is infinitely preferable. We wish children to be brought up in 
 the principles of the religious body to which they belong. But 
 we recognise that the religious bodies cannot provide enough 
 schools for the whole nation, and that for the rest it is better that 
 some religious education should be given — of the illogical and 
 insecure sort called the undenominational, which js very often 
 very good — rather than none at all. All we ask is that the State 
 should show no preference for undenominational over denomina- 
 tional schools. We claim, therefore, I repeat, the fullest liberty in 
 all schools provided by the Church to teach the children of 
 the Church the Bible on the basis of the Catechism, by means of 
 teachers appointed by the Church. This claim we cannot abate, 
 and we call attention to the fact that in providing the school 
 buildings we are more than paying the money equivalent of the 
 expense of the religious education. Now our power to enforce 
 this claim of ours lies partly in our political force, which might be 
 much greater than it is if we knew half as well as the Noncon- 
 formists do how to make our weight felt, and which will become 
 more evident the more our just demand is threatened or grossly 
 misconceived; partly in the fact that we own so many schools.^ 
 which the State cannot do without. ^C 
 
 Thirdly, I would say, with reference to the Nonconformist ^ 
 grievance, this only : It is quite true that there are a great many 
 areas where there is only one school, and that a Church School. 
 There at present the children can have no religious education, 
 except such as involves the Catechism. How great a grievance 
 that is, it is not for me to estimate. But there are also a number 
 of other areas where the only school is a Board School, where
 
 10 
 
 there is no other reHgious instruction than that (to us at least) 
 unsatisfactory sort which is called undenominational. The one 
 grievance — great or small — stands over against the other. There 
 does not appear to be any other way of meeting them than by the 
 method of " facilities : " that is, as the Committee of Convocation 
 proposed, " that whenever a reasonable number of parents desire 
 that religious instruction in accordance with their own belief 
 should be given to their children, opportunity for such instruction 
 shall be secured to them by statute in all Elementary Schools, 
 provided that this can be done without expense to the managers." 
 Many of our EducationaHsts say that little would come of the 
 provision of facilities. I am not convinced of that, but all I 
 would say is this : if facilities for undenominational instruction 
 are provided in denominational schools, the same facilities for 
 denominational instruction must be provided in undenominational 
 schools at least in single school areas. 
 
 These are the claims which, in my opinion, we ought as a 
 Church to make and reiterate : we want simply to have liberty to 
 teach our own children according to the principles to which they 
 belong : and to give all possible encouragement for children of 
 other denominations to be brought up in the manner approved 
 for them. We do not want to proselytize through the schools. 
 And having made our claim understood, we ought to leave it to 
 the State to determine how our claim is to be met and harmonised 
 with others. The most real obstacle to a settlement is, I am con- 
 vinced, the utterly unreasonable demand that the State should 
 give a preference to undenominational religious teaching, or 
 constitute undenominationahsm — which is a shifting sand — the 
 State religion. 
 
 IV. — The consideration of how to secure a better supply of 
 clergy is rendered necessary by a confessed dearth. Birmingham 
 was declared by the Commissioners of 1895 ^o "^^^l about 80 
 additional clergy, if there was to be one to every 3000 of the 
 population. Since then Birmingham has been growing, and I 
 suppose the deficiency of clergy is at this moment at least pro- 
 portionately as great 
 
 The fewness of the clergy in the thickly-populated parts of 
 North Worcestershire and Dudley, and in many other districts, is 
 most distressing. The difficulty in supplying vacant places is 
 constantly being forced upon us. In part, the difficulty is to find 
 money to support a clergyman, but it is also that we share with 
 the whole of our Church, and with many other parts of the 
 Church, a deficiency— not in the number of men who offer them- 
 selves for Holy Orders, but in the number of those so offering 
 who are properly qualified, or have funds sufficient to provide 
 themselves with the necessary education. 
 
 First of all, let me speak a word to those who find themselves 
 set to minister alone among many thousands. I would beg of
 
 11 
 
 them to remember both the stringency, and the limits, of their 
 responsibility. Its stringency. When God presents Himself to 
 us in our experience as a hard task master, " reaping where He 
 has not sown, and gathering where He has not strawed," or — as 
 we should say — giving so little and asking so much — we must lay 
 to heart the lesson of the parable of the man of the one talent. 
 We must 7iot faint under the seeming unjust burden, and in 
 despair do nothing. It is by corresponding to the utttermost and 
 to the end with the stern requirement that we are to find out that 
 God is really not a task master, but a bountiful Father. We are 
 not put into this world to be comfortable. "It is enough for the 
 disciple that he be as his Master." But on the other hand, our 
 responsibihty is limited. We are not responsible for the Church 
 or the world, but only for doing our best where we are stationed. 
 I have in my mind the picture of a priest alone amidst a great 
 population. He kept his own soul first. He was much in 
 prayer. He meditated. He studied the word of God. He took 
 great pains with his sermons. He rendered his daily and Sunday 
 services most reverently. He taught the children. He prepared 
 the young for Confirmation. He visited the sick. That was 
 about all he did do. Those are the primary points of a clergy- 
 man's duty. He had little of the organisation of a " well-ordered 
 parish." He had no reputation for universal activity. Perhaps 
 he did not make enough use of his laity. But because he was a 
 man to reverence and love and trust, and because he performed 
 his primary duties so well, he built up in and about.his church a 
 flock of converted, faithful, progressive, earnest Christians, who 
 really were a salt, a light, a leaven. And the Church was more 
 adequately represented in that parish than in many others better 
 staffed. What we want is not so much more clergy as good 
 clergy ; not so much more Christians as good Christians. So 
 much for the situation as it is. And for multiplying the number 
 of clergy in the future the same rule must hold. We must not 
 lower the standard of moral requirement, in order to supply 
 vacant places. I implore all the Clergy and Churchwardens 
 of the diocese to give me all the help they can in keeping 
 out unworthy clergy. I must be given full opportunity of 
 enquiry before a curate is provisionally engaged ; and enquiry 
 must go before even a very temporary engagement. And 
 in ordaining clergy for the future, the same rule must 
 hold ; we must not sacrifice standard, moral or intel- 
 lectual. The intellectual standard is low enough already. It 
 must be raised rather than lowered. Does this mean that we are 
 only to draw from the classes who have wealth to command an 
 expensive education ? I say, " No." Examine the records of 
 the most famous English Churchmen, and you will be surprised 
 to find how many have had a very humble origin, and have owed 
 their opportunities of education to the liberality of founders and
 
 12 
 
 benefactors. The real vocation of the Divine Spirit comes to 
 rich and poor alike. Are we in the Church of England to stand 
 alone in limiting the area of vocation to the upper classes ? I 
 believe not. The objections which people urge against drawing 
 from a wider area are really urged against imperfectly trained and 
 educated men. A thorough education can quite obhterate the 
 early defects of circumstance. What is wanted, besides a good 
 heart and a pure conscience, is a trained intelligence and spirit ; 
 it is here we are defective. The liberality of founder and bene- 
 factor in ancient days supplied the opportunity of such a training 
 for poor boys in our old universities. We must do it also in con- 
 nection with our new universities. Gentlemen, is it not a scandal 
 that the Church of England, rich as it is, should stand so far 
 behind all denominations, Roman Catholic and Nonconformist 
 as far as I know, in supplying education, full and thorough, for. 
 those who are thought worthy of the ministry. Once again the 
 Churchman must recognise it as a normal duty to supply funds 
 to train those who seem to have calling and aptitude for Holy 
 Orders. Let the possibility of a call to the ministry be set before 
 all. Let the thoughtful clergyman keep his eye on promising 
 boys. If they have a desire for Holy Orders, let them be first 
 subjected to a preliminary test Will they be patient and per- 
 severing in mastering their first obstacles, in some work that 
 is set them to do, or in making way wiih the rudiments of 
 Latin and Greek ? When he has satisfied himself that they 
 are persevering, and capable intellectually, and fit morally — and 
 it is the poorest kindness to encourage those who are not all 
 these things — let him interest his parish in them, and gain funds 
 locally to give them further training. Into the details of that 
 training I will not go. But it must be thorough. It must be a 
 general education, as well as a theological, and a training moral 
 and disciplinary as well as intellectual. It must be severe and 
 rigorous enough to test and sift the candidates. There must be 
 no false good-nature about it. For those who seem to have a 
 vocation to missionary work something is already being done, and 
 I want to call your attention to the Missionary Studentships' 
 Association in the diocese, of which Mr. Lawson, of Clent, is the 
 new secretary, and to ask for better support for it. For those 
 who desire to serve in the Ministry at home, there are religious 
 societies among us who have made a beginning of supplying an 
 absolutely gratuitous education and training, of such a testing 
 character as to sift off the unworthy or the unfit. The Society of 
 the Sacred Mission at Mildenhall has begun to do this with some 
 remarkable promise of success. The Society of the Resurrection 
 is following suit. If you say, these are societies of a particular 
 colour, there is no reason at all why people of another ecclesias- 
 tical colour should not do exactly the same. We hope much in 
 this diocese from Queen's College, with its renovated buildings and
 
 13 
 
 renovated management, working in connection with the Bir- 
 mingham University, which is showing itselt most willing to co- 
 operate. The point is : there are many applicants, and capable 
 and fit applicants, for the Christian ministry. The members of 
 the Church of England are at present behind all other Christian 
 bodies, and behind their own pious ancestors, in supplying them 
 with the means of testing or realising their vocation. Our 
 wealthier members must again learn that this is a moral and 
 primary duty of the Christian body. But the path, though 
 possible to aspirants without means, must not be easy. The 
 education must be liberal and full. It must be prolonged ; 
 and the discipline of the training must be severe enough to sift 
 out the incapable or the unpersevering or the unfit. There 
 must be no false good nature. And the bishops, with their 
 examining chaplains, must be vigorous in seeing to it that they 
 do not allow themselves to yield to the temptation of increasing 
 the supply by lowering the standard. The subject will be taken 
 up this afternoon 
 
 Meanwhile, while this and much else is being planned for the 
 future, we are in the present in a period ot some religious 
 depression. We want a revival among us of the public spirit, 
 which shall make the whole body of Churchmen recognise that 
 they must spend and sacrifice themselves, and their goods, for the 
 Church of Christ, and the maintenance of the work, the need of 
 which was never more manifest than it is to-day. We must be a 
 people of urgent and faithful prayer, imploring God insistently to 
 "revive His work in the midst of the years," to "raise up His 
 power and come among us, and with great might succour us." 
 The work of the Church, the praying for the Church, the service 
 of the Church, belongs not to the clergy only, but to all 
 Christians; and the work of the Church means — not the multi- 
 plications of buildings and plant only or chiefly — but the perpetual 
 effort in season and out of season — that is, when times seem 
 favourable and when they seem unfavourable — to convert souls 
 from sin to God, and to build them up in the society of the 
 redeemed.
 
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