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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

VISITATION CHARGES

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTIONS TO THE
ROLLS SERIES. Collected and Edited by Arthur
Hassall, M.A., Student, Tutor, and sometime Censor
of Christ Church. Medium %do, \2s. 6d. net.
LECTURES ON EUROPEAN HISTORY,
1519-1648. \. Charles V. (11 Lectures). \\. The Political
History of Europe from the Resignation of Charles V,
(II Lectures). III. The Political History of Europe
during the Thirty Years' War (10 Lectures). Also
Two Supplementary Lectures : Survey of the Reigns of
Louis XIII. and Philip IV. ; The Peace of Westphalia.
Medium %7io.
ORDINATION ADDRESSES. Edited by the
Rev. E. E. Holmes. With Photogravure Portrait.
Crown Stio, y. 6d. net.
THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS. With two
Maps. Fcap. 8vo, 2s. 6d. {Epochs of Modem History.)

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

VISITATION CHARGES
DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY AND
CHURCHWARDENS OF THE DIOCESES OF
CHESTER AND OXFORD
BY
WILLIAM STUBBS, D.D.

EDITED BY
E. E. HOLMES
HONORARY CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH AND VICAR OF SONNING
FORMERLV DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF OXFORD

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1904
All rights rcseived

PREFACE
I HAVE been advised to redeem a promise made in
the Preface to the Ordination Addresses, and to pub
lish the Bishop's Visitation Charges, delivered in the
dioceses of Chester and Oxford ; — Charges containing
the Bishop's "beliefs and impressions" on "great prin
ciples," and on many of the most important questions
of the day. With one eye on the publisher and the
other on the public, I have omitted matters of purely
local interest, such as diocesan statistics, etc. Obituary
notices, too, have been omitted, although it is difficult
not to wish for space to record fully a great ^man's
views on great men — such men as Dean Liddell, " looked
up to," by the Bishop, "as a scholar, a wise adminis
trator, and a most straightforward and righteous man " ;
Liddon, " so distinctly an Oxford man in all senses
that we can never cross the great quadrangle without
thinking of him as still in spirit working on us and with
us" ; Aubrey Moore, "next to the Dean of St. Paul's and
Liddon, our greatest loss, the greatest loss that the whole
Church has sustained during the years I am reviewing" ;
Archdeacon P aimer, -fi\\as,& "long acquaintance with Oxford
— the University and colleges — acquaintance with all men
and things that were worth knowing for more than fifty
years . . . made him almost a unique element in the
continuity of University life, and also in that continuity
of connection between the University and Church life

vi PREFACE
which, under however varied and modified forms, must
continue to exist until the salt has lost its savour" ; Dean
Butler, "the great Dean Butler, of Wantage, the bravest,
the most clear-sighted, most steadfast, immovable cham
pion of good works"; Noel Freeling, and many others,
whose names remind us of the affectionate debt of grati
tude the present owes to the past. With these omissions,
the Charges are published practically as they were de
livered.
E. E. HOLMES
SONNING, 1904

CONTENTS
Visitation Charge delivered in the Diocese of
Chester
PAGE
October, 1886 . . . . . i
Visitation Charges delivered in the Diocese of
Oxford
June, 1890 . . . . 65
April and May, 1893 . . .138
May and June, 1896 . 238
May and June, 1899 . . . 306

VISITATION CHARGE

DELIVERED IN

Zf)c 2)iocese of Cbeeter

PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
OCTOBER, 1886

church Courts.
THE only legislative measure passed during these years
which bears generally on the body of the clergy is the
Pluralities Acts Amendment Act of 1885, which, by reason
of the part assigned to the clergy of each archdeaconry in
the choice of Commissioners of inquiry, has no doubt
been brought within the notice of you all. This Act is
a very important one, and, if its value were not impaired
by the failure to provide means for paying expenses, would
be more important still. At the same time this very
difficulty must be a check upon a wanton or careless em
ployment of it ; whilst, for cases which demand summary
and decisive treatment, funds may be expected to be
always forthcoming. Without attempting, what indeed
is quite unnecessary, to analyse the Act, I will call your
attention to one or two sections of it. The second clause
contains a sort of definition of the duties, the neglect of
which calls for the enforcement of the Act ; '' not only the
regular and due performance of divine service on Sundays
and holy days, but also all such duties as any clergyman
holding a benefice is bound by law to perform, or the per
formance of which is solemnly promised by every clergy
man of the Church of England at the time of his
ordination, and the performance of which shall have been
required of him in writing by the Bishop." It might be
desired perhaps that the definition had been more circum
stantial ; but I think that where there is such a tendency

% PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
as is prevalent in these days to turn minimums into
maximums, it is better as it is. It is not, however, very
clear at first sight what connection subsists between the
three clauses of the definition, whether before the be
ginning of proceedings it will be necessary to prove that
the negligent incumbent has neglected the Bishop's ad
monition to perform his legal and covenanted duties, and
whether, without such admonition, he may regard his
neglects as authorised. I hope that none of the clergy of
this diocese will ever think of quibbling about this ; but I
need not tell you that the law is not made for the righteous
man, but for the negligent, and, in this case, for those
guilty of a sort of negligence that implies much more
than indolence, self-will, or disobedience — no less than
breach of solemn covenant and carelessness of those for
whom Christ died and whose souls He has put in their
especial charge.
The sixth and seventh clauses provide for the attendance
of witnesses and production of documents. No doubt the
clauses were intended to meet the difficulty which arises
from the reluctance of parishioners to testify against their
clergymen in such matters, a reluctance which has much
of its basis in good feeling. It is unfortunate, I think,
that it should be comparatively easy to find witnesses
who will testify to a minute ritual variation, which may or
may not be legal and customary ; difficult to find witnesses
who will speak out on matters of intemperance, immorality,
or neglect of duty. But such apparently is the case. No
new powers are given by these clauses, nor any other
modes of enforcing evidence, than are common to the
higher spiritual courts, the Consistory and Court of Arches,
and these powers are confessedly extremely difficult of
application. The following clauses, enabling the Bishop
to fix the stipend and number of curates appointed in
consequence of the action taken on the result of the
inquiry, and the fourteenth clause, allowing the issue of
dispensation for pluralities in cases where two churches are
within four miles of one another, one of which is not above
the value of .^200 a year, have some importance in their

CHURCH COURTS 3
bearing on the economy of ecclesiastical funds. The full
force, however, of the new Act can only be worked out
by a careful reading of it in connection with the Clergy
Discipline Act, i & 2 Victoria c. 106, the provisions of
which it for the most part enlarges, and the working of
which, on both the old and new lines, it was intended to
facilitate. In connexion with the subject of ecclesiastical discipline,
I will venture to make a digression, which will enable me
not only to state one or two points of personal explanation,
but to put before you one or two principles, which seem to
me of importance, for a mere general and appreciative
view of the subject. I mean, of course, the recent Com
mission on Ecclesiastical Courts.
The Commissioners were directed to inquire into the
constitution and working of the ecclesiastical courts as
created or modified under the Reformation statutes of the
25th and 26th years of King Henry VIII. and any sub
sequent Acts, and to report their opinion on the matter
submitted for their consideration.
The action of this Commission occupied a great part of
the years 1 882 and 1883, and the report has afforded material
for a good deal of consideration and discussion ever since.
No legislation has followed from that report ; the time has
not come for any hopeful attempt at legislation, and I do
not think it likely that the time ever will come for legisla
tion on the precise lines of the recommendations of the
Commissioners. It was a large Commission, composed of
men of very different training, opinions, and ways of look
ing at questions ; and the report was, if not exactly a
compromise, rather the resultant of more than two sets of
forces working in different directions, than the distinct
collective and definitive judgment of men who were agreed
on fundamental principles. Hence perhaps it might be
anticipated that no strong party among the Commissioners
would be very anxious to push the recommendations as a
whole. And the result has proved so much. There might,
indeed, a priori be different opinions cis to what the object
of such a Commission ought to be. A careful examina-

4 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
tion into the history of ecclesiastical jurisprudence was
one thing ; an attempt to solve by practical legislation the
difficulties which, on all hands, were found to attend on
the present conditions of ecclesiastical litigation, was quite
another. The former proceeding might well have operated
to allay urgent discontents, showing that the evils now
complained of were inherent, almost of necessity, in the
existing relations between Church and State, and that
many inconveniences must be endured because the cost of
ridding ourselves of them would be so great as to involve
vital changes. Such I, for my part, believe one great lesson
of all Church history to be ; it would help to comfort those
who were distressed, to suggest patience and perseverance
to those who were weary with struggling for the right
cause, as it seemed to them, and it would show the
necessity and, perhaps, to some extent, inspire the feeling
of sympathy in men whose opinions on minor points were
discordant, in the view of the great end and aim that all
have at heart. The second object, the proposing of distinct
measures of legislation, by a body of men who were not
at one on the principles to be worked out, must of necessity
be something of a compromise, although even then, on
such a condition, we might have proposed alternative
schemes, each of which, on its own lines, would have been
consistent, and under certain conditions practicable: it
would not have been in our province to provide the condi
tions, it would have been enough to indicate them, and to
leave to the statesman who should see fit to initiate
legislation on the subject to choose the conditions, and
to determine the plan among the alternatives which he
would propose to Parliament. That idea was not followed.
A string of formulated recommendations was appended
to the historical conclusions of the report. Even then
these recommendations might have been regarded more
as materials for the basis of an enactment, than as a hard-
and-fast plan, for although, in a certain portion of them,
several articles were so put together as to receive the
consent of the several Commissioners only in their collec
tive form— in such a way that the subtraction of any one

CHURCH COURTS 5
of them would exonerate the Commissioners from responsi
bility for any or all of the other recommendations — that
was not the case with the whole series, some part of which
might have been selected at once for piecemeal legislation.
That, however, was not contemplated ; the recommenda
tions still stand before the world as a whole, as the resultant
of several strong lines of opinion, as a scheme which none
of its signatories can be thought to have very much at
heart, and as a draft, the provisions of which it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to embody in a Bill to be
presented to Parliament.
This being the case, as it appears to me, I might very
well be asked. Why did you sign the report, and why did
you sign without reservation? I think that my answer
would be, I signed the report and recommendations with
out reservation because I did not wish to weaken the good
effects that might be expected from it, even if no legisla
tion should follow ; because I did not wish, by singling out
particular points for exception, to accentuate my own
acceptance of the general tenour of the other recommenda
tions, and, further, because in the minutes appended to the
report I had had an opportunity of presenting my own
view of what the most important feature of the recommen
dations, the idea of the supreme tribunal of appeal, ought
to be. As I felt myself relieved from the responsibility of
making a reservation, I was at liberty to sign the report as
the result of the deliberations of a large body of practical
men, as an expression of opinion as to a state of things, a
modus Vivendi, with which, viewed as a whole, and in
relation to present circumstances. Churchmen might fairly
be expected to content themselves, and as, although far
from my ideal of what such a thing ought to be, a safe and
desirable step in advance towards such an ideal.
In the sketch which I offered to the Commissioners of
what I conceived the final step of appeal should be in
all litigation, in which doctrine and ritual are concerned, I
thought that I had propounded a scheme which would
have satisfied reasonable men without any great need
to provide safeguards in the lower stages of proceeding.

6 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
If we had, that is to say, a supreme tribunal, to which men
would be ready and willing to render obedience, seeing no
theoretical or practical escape from responsibility for such
obedience, it would be of less importance that the recourse
to that tribunal should be guarded either by limiting the
power of initiation, by defining the character of the inferior
tribunals, by prohibiting more than one appeal, or the like ;
under such circumstances it would be safe to leave wanton
litigants to the deterrent risk or punishment of heavy
costs. You will see that, in saying this, I am touching a point
on which much discussion has been taken, the power
exercised by the Bishop, under both the Clergy Discipline
Act and the Public Worship Regulation Act, of with
holding his consent for the prosecution of delinquents or
supposed delinquents. Such a power would be, it is true,
unnecessary, if the supreme tribunal of appeal was one
which enjoyed the confidence of the clergy : but even then
it would be well to retain the power as a check upon petty
persecution and on the attempts at personal annoyance
and even oppression, which too great facilities of recourse
to legal proceedings seem to encourage. We must remem
ber that on all historical and religious theory, even on the
word of the apostle himself, the office of a Bishop is to
protect his clergy where they need protection : and that
where, as here, his judicial functions have been, by long
custom and material restriction, so much limited as they
have now become, the accompanying power, the check
which the law has given him on the misuse of authority,
which is based really on what is intrinsically his own
authority, ought not to be taken from him. The Bishop is
the protector of the clergy as well as the judge, whose
judicial power, exercised in his name, is exercised by a
court in which he has hardly any voice, and for which he
has only a very remote, indirect responsibility, or none
at all.
I am, however, told that in the exercise of this dis
cretionary power the Bishop is really acting as a judge,
using a judicial weapon to stay the liberty of litigation^

CHURCH COURTS 7
and to limit the right which every subject possesses of
proceeding to the summa justitia in Church or State for
decision of his claims. I must decline, once for all, to
debate the second limb of this objection, even if I stand
alone in my opinion that a charge of ritual or doctrinal
irregularity, which is liable to end in deprivation or sus
pension, is really a penal charge on which the accused
person has every right to every sort of protection which
the analogy of the criminal law gives him. But as to the
first objection, that the Bishop is acting as a judge in
determining whether or no he shall consent to the initia
tion of proceedings, I will say a word or two, because the
allegation contains or insinuates a principle, or rather
a prejudice, which I wish emphatically to repudiate. It is
often stated, it is often taken for granted, that the work
and office of a Bishop, the work and office of any clergy
man, is such as to incapacitate him, not merely is not such
as to qualify him, but is such as to disqualify him, from
acting as a judge at all. A Bishop's time ought not to be
taken up, we are told, with hearing litigation : he is not
to be distracted from preaching or writing letters, or con
firming, by having to give his mind to abstruse or minute
questionings ; he has not been trained to understand the
law of evidence, he has not been in the habit of examining
records, or weighing probabilities, he has not been accus
tomed to take a sceptic or agnostic attitude in things
touching the faith, and so cannot be supposed to have
preserved a judgment either balanced or capable of being
balanced on such points as come into controversy in these
times. The same string of allegations is laid against the
clergy generally, and the charge of clerical incompetency
is thus made to do its work not only as against the dis
cretion of the Bishop in the first instance, but as against
the employment of ecclesiastics, either as authorities or as
experts, as judges or assessors in the final resort. I need
not retaliate on the lawyers, whose training in civil and
criminal jurisprudence, and whose practical advance to the
position of judges by forensic or parliamentary practice,
seems to imply in a very small degree competency

8 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
or experience for the management of questions of the
sort that troubles us in ecclesiastical matters, but I
distinctly refuse to acknowledge any practical truth or
necessary bearing in these assertions. If a man, by reason
of his want of ability or want of experience, is unfit to
exercise his common sense on such questions as this dis
cretionary power of the Bishop involves, he is unfit to be
made a Bishop; he has not indeed the qualification that
fits him for being a borough magistrate. The law of
evidence is no great mystery; any man fitted by other
qualifications for the position in which he would have to
apply it would speedily master it, and if he were unwilling
to risk anything on his own command of it, could in every
diocese readily obtain the assistanceof a lawyer who would
keep him straight — but as a matter of fact the law of
evidence would not very often come into question at either
end of the work. It is not every day, thank God, that
litigation is attempted. It is not every clergyman who is
expected to undertake the functions of a judge. It is a
disgrace to a Church to have to confess that it is governed
by men who have neither time nor ability to examine into
hard questions ; and it shall not be, so long as I can raise
my voice to deny it, it shall not be said of the Church of
England that she is the only religious body in the world
which is obliged, by the incapacity of her rulers, to devolve
the decisions of her most momentous interests on men
who are uninformed and untrained for the consideration of
them, having a clergy neither learned enough, nor just
enough, nor careful enough to furnish faithful judges. Do
not suppose that I shut my eyes to the difficulties and the
impracticabilities of the matter. I am not very enthusi
astic, and I do not expect very much sympathy in my small
enthusiasms, but I still believe in the authority of the posi
tion in which I am placed, and trust in the guidance of
Him who has placed me here, and am ready to pray for more
guidance and to devote, to the utmost, my powers to the
ascertaining of the truth and doing of fair justice, the
Lord being my helper.
And having said so much I may very well turn to some-

CHURCH PATRONAGE 9
thing else, but let me say this much further: there must
be, in the matters of controversy of which in these days we
hear so much, open questions ; there must be points raised
on which it is better that there should not be, even if there
can be, binding decisions. The evil of controversy is not
so much in the breach of uniformity as in the promotion
of self-will, the damage to the proportion of faith and
symmetry of practice, and chiefly in the creation of ex
clusive partisanship and unchristian animosities. The
Bishop has a right to exercise all authority which person
ally or officially belongs to him — paternal, judicial, social,
or political — not only to the maintenance of the law of the
Church, but to the maintenance of the equity of the ex
ample of Christ, the bearing one another's burdens, the
most excellent gift of charity.
Church Patronage.
Another important topic for consideration in this con
nexion, as involving legislative action, is the scheme of
reform of the abuses of Church patronage, which had just
emerged from the review of a Select Committee of the
House of Lords when the Parliament was dissolved in
June. The Bill so amended is the present form in which
the project is before the country. I cannot, on this occasion,
think it worth while to trace the bearing of the amend
ments, as amendments, on the original proposal, and it is
unnecessary to tell you what was the chief motive in the
introduction of the Bill, or what were the previous stages
of discussion. The Bill as it at present stands allows the
sale of an existing estate, or interest in any advowson or
right of presentation, to any public patron, or to any
person approved by a council of presentations constituted
by the Act, under the provisions of the Act, or to any
qualified parishioner, i.e. as defined by the Bill, the owner
of lands of ;£'200 a year within the parish. Except under
this provision, and under the Chancellor's Act of 1863, all
future sales are void ; and, even under the Act, no sale
of a portion of such interest, or sale by auction, or mortgage,
is allowable except in the case of advowsons at present

10 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
appendant to manors or hereditaments, which are not
affected by the prohibition of sale. The council of patron
age is diocesan, or rather archidiaconal, consisting of the
Bishop, the Archdeacon, a representative of the Chapter,
and an elected representative of the clergy of the arch
deaconry, the Chancellor of the diocese, or a legal substitute,
a layman, and two laymen of the archdeaconry, chosen by
a body of electors representing for this purpose the laity of
the diocese, themselves chosen by the parishioners of each
parish in the Easter Vestry. This council is to test the quali
fication of the intending purchasers of advowsons ; it may
not approve of any who is a dealer in livings, or who cannot
declare himself free from the obligations which are known
as simoniacal. Another branch of the Bill deals with pro
cedure on presentation; directs that a disavowal shall be
made on the part of the patron of any simoniacal engage
ment, and prescribes an enlarged and definite form of
testimonial ; allowing the Bishop to refuse institution of a
presentee on the ground of age, insufficiency of testimonial,
or a report from the council of his mental or bodily unfit
ness, debt likely to cause scandal, evil reputation, or
particular circumstances which in the opinion of the council
render the appointment unadvisable. An appeal from
the Bishop to the Archbishop is allowed and regulated.
Provision is made for a delay of a month between presenta
tion and institution, during which objections may be raised
by the parishioners; these objections must be of the sort
which, according to the provisions of the previous clauses,
would justify the Bishop in refusing institution; and these
may be referred to the council of patronage. The Bishop
has, however, discretion to act without regarding the
decision of the council; and his right to examine the
presentee, and determine his action, is not affected by the
fact that such reference has been made. The communica
tions, in such cases of objection and inquiry, are to be
treated as privileged. Improved forms of declaration are
provided; Roman Catholic patrons are allowed to present,
the law of sequestration for debt is amended, and provision
is made for cases of lunacy. Donatives are to become

CHURCH PATRONAGE 11
presentative benefices, and resignation bonds are to be
abolished. Here is, you see, a sufficiently ample material for dis
cussion in and out of Parliament, when the time comes at
which room can be found for such discussion, and the
temper comes in which, without sectarian bitterness and
obstruction, and with a determinate purpose of reform, to
which some modicum of private property-right may well
be sacrificed, such discussion can be fairly taken. I trust
that the day may come soon. Without committing myself
to every item of the Bill, or pretending that it is a perfect
scheme, I may say that it does strike me as a fair balance
between the doctrine of property and the doctrine of trust,
between the right of the laity and the right of the clergy,
and between the right of the locality and that of the Church
organisation as a whole. This is a matter upon which the
clergy personally can exercise some influence both directly
and indirectly, without, I think, increasing the unfortunate
tendency which exists to regard patronage as a sort of
joint stock of organisation in which shares may be claimed
and promotions expected. I have heard it said that the
Clergy List is a dangerous book. Much may be done
towards raising the popular view as to rights and re
sponsibilities as well as to the correction of painful misap
prehensions. I hardly think that it is within my province to offer now
any remarks on the proposed legislation, which may or may
not result from the labours of the Cathedral Commission,
but, as the subject occupies a position of some importance
in the eyes of Churchmen just now, I will say very briefly
what I have to say. I conceive that, in the present state
of Cathedral life, the safest thing would be to leave the
Deans and Chapters, who are fully alive to their duties
and responsibilities, to work out their mission in accord
ance with their history, position, and the local circumstances
in which they find themselves; or at all events to go no
further in the way of alteration than to enable them to get
rid of the existing obstacles to improvement and develop
ment, I am entirely opposed to the idea that there should

12 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
be an inflexible rule, and unchangeable model, to which all
classes of Cathedrals should be made to conform ; or that
even when classified together all the members of each class
should be forced into uniformity. I am not at all sure that
the organisation of a capitular body, of the historical
character existing in the old Cathedrals, is at all necessary
for the completion of the machinery of the new bishoprics ;
although it is desirable that all the Bishops should have
the means of securing such counsel and assistance as the
ideal capitular arrangement offers. Accordingly, when a
Commission was asked for which might enable the
Cathedrals of the New Foundation to reform their statutes,
I saw no good likely to arise from the offer of one which
would bring the whole body of these institutions, old and
new foundations alike, under review, and risk the loss of a
great deal which was both practically valuable and historic
ally of great and living interest. The institution of a
Cathedral Committee of the Privy Council, which has been
proposed by the Commission, does not recommend itself to
me, either in reference to the theory of the thing, or in
reference to the working of such Committees, which seems
to me to offer too great openings for unnecessary and
over-tentative changes. I do not like the theory which
practically eliminates the authority of the Bishop from his
Cathedral ; and I do not like the working of a system that
offers a premium to impatience and disunion. There is no
elasticity in the working of such a scheme, and it seems to
me to unite the characteristics of making reform difficult
and agitation easy. The particular statutes drawn for our
own Cathedral I do not approve ; they seem to me to make
obligatory by law matters which might easily be dealt with
by Chapter order, and they fetter the action of the Bishop
in his administration of patronage in a way which is
arbitrary and unwise. I do not suppose, however, that,
during my episcopate, any such provisions would be en
forced. As to the whole question, I fully believe that an
Act something like the statute of Anne, on which the legal
obligation of the New Foundation Cathedral Statutes rests
at present, an Act which would enable the Chapters to

VISITATION QUESTIONS 13
enforce, under the view of their Visitor, the statutes already
valid, and provide for the execution of Chapter orders for
the future, was all that was requisite. The wider questions,
which concern the future of our Cathedral system, and that
more through incorporation into the life of the diocese
and of the Church, which is already being worked out by
industrious labour and careful study — how to make every
thing connected with it perfect in order, administration,
and extension of usefulness — were, I doubt not, present to
the minds of the Commissioners, but do not on the surface
receive much illustration, either from the report or from the
projected statutes. As I am not now holding a Visitation
of our Cathedral, a matter which I may undertake next
year, if I live, I will not now comment on the more specu
lative and less authoritative schemes of Cathedral reform
which are propounded, or likely to be propounded, in the
present state of ecclesiastical opinion.
As to these and all the like matters, which, second to
the things spiritual, are still so closely bound up with them
as matters of daily and hourly responsibility before God
and man as to be serious elements of our life here, I com
mend myself to your prayers and sympathy.
visitation Questions.
In drawing up the paper of questions to be addressed to
the clergy, in preparation for the Visitation, I have followed
almost exactly the plan of my predecessor.
From the answers to the tenth question I learn that
in the choice of hymn-book, there is a very large con
sensus for the use of the best and most careful compilations
— no very great diversity of usage — only three different
manuals being to any considerable extent employed, in
spite of the variety of local habits and musical develop
ments. Remembering, as I do, the days when every con
siderable congregation had its own collection, and the only
large consensus was in favour of the dullest and most
unintelligible hymns, I am inclined to think this a good
sign of improvement and of increasing interest and realisa
tion of unity in the worship of the congregations.

14 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
Evening Communion.
I now come to the questions touching the celebration
of the Holy Communion. I should be shirking what I
believe to be my duty if I were not to say that I am sorry
to find the practice of evening Communion still retained
in so many parishes. When I say this, you must not
understand that I am unconscious of, or that I shut my
eyes to, the difficulty of the subject : the difficulties which
the practice is intended to meet, and the difficulties of
laying it aside when and where it has been once adopted.
I am not likely to forget that, in many places, it was
originally introduced in consequence of a growing realisa
tion of the sacramental system, and in the simple and
earnest belief that it was better to sacrifice a subordinate
matter of ecclesiastical order than to run the risk of prac
tically depriving those who could not attend morning
service of one of the institutions which we are taught
to regard as generally necessary to salvation. I can
understand the obstacle to abolishing evening Communion
which is to be found in the fact that by this time, un
happily, the subject has come to be regarded as bound
up with party politics in ecclesiastical matters. I can,
moreover, make considerable allowances for the change
which altered manners, altered times of rising, Sunday
meals, and Sunday services, make in the domestic habits,
which are matters now of necessity rather than con
venience. But with all these allowances I cannot over
come my aversion to a practice which seems to me both
lazy and inconsistent with that amount of exertion and
respectful preparation which the reception of the Holy
Sacrament demands. As to the main arguments on the
subject, I am heartily at one with my venerated pre
decessor, whose reasons for disapproval are on record
in the memories of most of you. I am not disposed to
set forth injunctions which will not be obeyed, or to offer
recommendations which will not be adopted; neither am
I going to censure those clergymen whose position and
exigencies seem to themselves a justification for con
tinuing the practice I speak of. But I must distinctly

CEREMONIAL 15
say that any clergyman who shall hereafter introduce
evening Communions into his church will do it in direct
opposition to the deliberate opinion which I have ex
pressed now as to its fitness or expediency. The true
way of meeting the difficulty is to be found in increasing
the number of celebrations at the regular hours, in urging
on the heads of families their duty of making such ar
rangements as will enable all the confirmed inmates of
their houses to communicate from time to time, and, in
general, by such teaching as will exhibit the true import
ance of the Sacrament, the duty and privilege, the blessing,
and the obligation of obeying the Saviour's command and
appropriating the fulfilment of His promise.
Words of Administration.
The last clause of the fifteenth question is not satis
factorily answered. The words of administration are
clearly, both on the face of the rubric and on the evidence
of the history of the circumstances which gave the rubric
its present form, intended and directed to be addressed
to each communicant : not to twos or threes, or sets, at
a time. It is quite possible that the altered circumstances
of the Church might now admit of some relaxation of
this rule, but it has not been relaxed; and, in common
with other portions of the Communion Service, which add
unnecessarily to the length of our present composite morn
ing offices, cannot be dispensed with either by episcopal
or individual discretion.
Ceremonial. I would call the attention of the clergy in this con
nexion to a further generalisation which they must take
in good part. I am, both by constitution and by mature
conviction, strongly indisposed to mere mechanical uni
formity in divine worship : but I am most anxious that
everything should be done, especially in this most solemn
ordinance, in a way that shall express, and work, sympathy,
unity in spirit and heart. I know that there are great
and permissible variations in the ceremonial which belongs

16 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
to it. The simplest and plainest celebration may be full
of reverence and devotion ; carelessness and perfunctori-
ness may intrude into the most elaborate and ornate
ritual. It would be a great blessing if the differences
of practice could be leavened with the same penetrating
and absorbing spirit, drawing hearts together even when
the fashion of the ceremonial varied. It would be well
that the variations themselves could be minimised, so as
not to distract attention where hearts and minds and souls
should be concentrated ; so as not to invite criticism, or
to provoke antipathy in the midst of the ordinance of
peace. Let us bear one another's burdens ; bear one
another's variations, and even eccentricities; but for the
sake of Truth, and Love, and the God who is with us,
let us do our best to maintain the reality and reverence
that belongs to the Holiest of the Holy Mysteries.
Schools. The questions numbered 17 to 23 relate to schools,
and the answers call for no very specialised review now.
It is welcome news that the education of the people is
improving; it is very satisfactory to find that board
schools are not increasing, and that voluntary effort has
not yet broken down under the heavy strain that seems
each year to make it less voluntary or even to prevent
it from being truly spontaneous. But the side of the
question that is present to my mind on this occasion is
chiefly this: how far is the Church, how far are the
clergy, discharging the duty, which is only modified, by
no means taken out of their hands, by the present system
of public elementary education? The limitation of the
religious instruction given in our schools throws upon us
a stricter form of obligation— a concentration of religious
teaching, and the recourse to new machinery in substitu
tion for that which is no longer so available as it used
to be in the day school. The revival of catechising in
Church, the development of Sunday-schools, the institution
of communicant, Bible, and adult classes, and the working
on the lines of Confirmation preparation, are present to

SCHOOLS 17
your minds as to mine. But I cannot help expressing
a wish that the clergy would make a special effort to
economise and utilise every opportunity they have of
visiting the schools regularly, and likewise of instructing
the pupil teachers. If the opportunities of direct religious
instruction in the day school are limited, we ought to do
our best to prevent that limitation from becoming mis
chievous — we must do our best to secure that all the
teaching in our schools is given in a religious spirit, and
with some realisation of the religious character of all duty
and all knowledge. If the education of the people is not
to be left at a standstill, it will not long continue to
satisfy itself with what we call elementary instruction;
there must be progress and incorporation of new subjects,
and specialisation as well : and all such progress is for the
best — for all knowledge, in the process and as a result
of the acquisition, leads men to higher regions of thought
and nearer approaches to truth. In religious teaching,
and not merely in that, but in the religious teaching of
all subjects, it is the duty of the clergy to try to lead
on the teachers of the next generation to more refined
and judicial culture, to a true appreciation of the precious-
ness and proportion of real knowledge. Perhaps you think
that I have placed the performance of a duty, which some
find irksome and which at the best involves some drudgery,
a thought too high. But I adhere to it still : you must
individualise your educational work, as you would every
other department of your pastoral work. Sermons are
useless without parochial visiting and sympathetic personal
intercourse. The children in the schools, the pupil teachers
in their preparation for higher work, must be made to see
that they are, each one in his individuality, a care and
study to those who are set to work for them in the Lord,
to whom each one is as dear, and ought to know by
experience that he is as dear, and as distinctly an object
of care, as if he were the only one to whom the parish
priest, following his Lord, brought the knowledge of the
word of life and truth.
I must pass over the intermediate questions, the answers

18 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
to which are subject to local variations and turn on par
ticular circumstances which come before us on other
occasions, and go at once to the thirtieth question : What
are the chief hindrances to the success of your pastoral
labours ?
Pastoral Work.
This is a very wide question, and it has received a wide
variety of answers. Some of these it was, I think, scarcely
intended to elicit ; for I conceive that the object of putting
the question was to draw out a representation of the diffi
culties which the Bishop's advice or influence would be
likely to counteract. It does, however, give the clergy the
opportunity of confessing their own insufficiency, poverty,
weariness, self-distrust, and sense of inadequateness, as
well as of proclaiming that their struggle is against the
evil of corrupt humanity in their flocks and the influences
to which they are subject. Those of the clergy who tell
me that immorality, intemperance, impurity, ignorance,
are hindrances to their success, do little more than tell me
that they have no special hindrances ; for it is against
such evils that, in the first instance, they have undertaken
to struggle. Some few mention more distinct sorts of
difficulties — the retention of the pew system ; the want of
help and countenance from the resident gentry of their
neighbourhoods ; the absence of such social influence alto
gether, and of the example in the way of culture, good
manners, and gentle kindly feeling, which might make
such an element very precious in the work of drawing
men's hearts together; the mischiefs which have arisen
from past neglect, non-residence, bad clergymen, and bad
traditions in former times ; the terrible and crying offence
of Sunday labour, not only in the great manufacturing
districts, but in the agricultural, and especially in the
cheese-making parts of Cheshire; and in the system of
Sunday excursion trains, which is making a wilderness
and desert (religiously speaking) of whole villages in the
diocese that border on the industrial districts; scattered
populations, remoteness of church from people, local

SUNDAY 19
grounds of offence, prejudices of religious partisanship,
aversion to distinct Church principles, sectarian feeling
and political animosities.
It is difficult to cull, from such a garden full of weeds,
those which are capable of special treatment. Some of
the evils noted are altogether out of our reach. We
cannot force residence or the duty of residence on the
landlords ; we cannot build a church or even a mission
room for every group of cottages ; we cannot stem the
tide of the Sunday excursion trains, or even attempt to
provide a special remedy in the way of counter attraction
or excitement. At the outside we can only do our best
to raise the tone of the public mind on this as on the
other points ; all are matters for serious thought. The
peculiar openings for immoral behaviour in connection
with the special agricultural industry of Cheshire are, as
has been proved by one at least of our most honoured
brethren, capable of thorough reform : the reformation of
manners in one parish, produced by a steady and high-
principled remonstrance with the employers of labour, has
been very signal. It is surely to be believed that the con
tinuance of evil and degrading customs is in many cases
due to the influence of habit and to the shortsightedness
that long-continued abuses produce, which may be over
come by an honest and frank, unpretentious, courageous,
and considerate representation of the evil.
Sunday. The more one thinks of the question of Sunday ob
servance, the more important and the more difficult the
issues seem that result from the present condition of
things. Sunday is a day of rest — Sunday is a day of
devotion — of rest sanctified for and by devotion. The
continuity of labour, whether it be agricultural work, or
chemical work, or iron and steel work, or the work that
is involved in the excursion trains, is alike a breach in the
law of rest and in the law of devotion. The giving of the
day of rest to the greedy seeking after change and excite
ment, such as the excursion system seems to foster, is a

20 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
serious breach in the law that should sanctify all the
recreation of the day. The results of wasted and mis
spent Sundays, in the demoralisation of our people, are
well known, sadly well known — the increase of drunken
ness, the beginning of vice, sin, and crime, arising from
Sunday idleness and wantonness, are matters of the com
monest experience. On the other hand, people cannot be
forced into church, and, if they were, their act would not
be devotion. They cannot and ought not to be attracted
by counter excitement which would end in certain reaction.
It is unkind and unwise to think of debarring them from
the refreshment and diversion of a short run into the
country on the only day of the week that can be appro
priated in that way, and we have no right, no order, to
infringe their liberty in doing so. And again, we are to
some extent bound by a tradition of strictness for which
we are not accountable, and which can never have been
thoroughly enforced ; a tradition which has become, with
certain classes of people, the most prominent and conscious
sign of religious profession, and a very important part of
the discipline which guides their moral conduct. And this
tradition fetters the hands of those who do believe that
something might be done for the relief of an oppressing
evil. We know of the efforts made to open libraries and
picture-galleries and public gardens on Sundays — just as
we know of the attempts to close public-houses on Sundays.
Many of us feel that, except so far as the opening of such
institutions as libraries and galleries on Sunday involves
Sunday labour, the measure is open to little or no charge
of irreligion or disregard for the holy day. I know of
very few good people who, when they are abroad,
abstain from visiting picture-galleries on Sundays, or
from appearing in other resorts where they would not
show themselves at home, even if they had time and
inclination— and why? Simply because, by breaking the
strict traditional custom of English opinion, they would
be breaking down a barrier which keeps out incompletely,
but to a certain extent efficiently, a great deal of public
mischief; they would be seeming to countenance a

SUNDAY 21
great deal of defiance to God's law and public decency
of conduct.
I can but state the difficulty — the extreme difficulty
that has hitherto baffled the efforts of humanitarians and
philanthropists as well as of clergymen. That by God's
blessing and in good time a way may be found out of the
perplexity, I do not doubt. The growth of education
ought to result in a refinement which will put vulgar
excitement out of the list of things desirable ; a better
knowledge of the true force of Sunday obligation will
prevent the tension of the outward rules of observance ;
and possibly, with an enlarged sense of liberty, there will
be a higher sense of the blessings of Sunday rest. But,
for ourselves and for our own sense of responsibility, we
can put our trust in no such contingencies, no such hopes
of a future that we shall not live to see, and in considera
tion of which our own work cannot be estimated. We
must do the best we can with the means that are within
our reach: using all influence we have or can get to
prevail on employers to minimise the necessary labours
of their workpeople, and on the people themselves to give
a portion of their time of rest to the welfare of their souls
and the service of their Maker. We must try to engage
them, old and young, so far as we can, in the interest of
Church and school, giving them their place and portion :
we must try to enter into their weekday interests and lead
them on to the sanctification of the week by the Sunday.
We must bear in mind that, as "the Sabbath was made
for man, not man for the Sabbath," so with the Sunday
tradition of English religion : men are not to be driven
to the public-house because they will not be driven into
church. After all that I have said, you may justly say,
it is hard to be put off with generalities. You know as
well as I, many of you by sadder experience, far better
than I can pretend to see or to feel, the fatal mischief of
the existing state of things. Your work is that which lies
before your feet, the rescuing of one child here, another
there ; the sanctification of one household here and another
there; the drawing of one man, woman, or child, one

22 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
definite man, woman, and child on one definite Sunday to
church and away from the public-house — the turning of
one sinner at a time from the error of his ways. May
He who can, take this stumbling-block from before us
shortly, and give us strength to overcome the evil with
good.Indifference. Of all the hindrances to the success of the pastoral
labours of the clergy, the one which is most prominent
in the answers to the thirtieth question on the Visitation
papers is indifference — a wide and most unhappily sug
gestive term, which, indeed, covers many causes of trouble
and misgiving. Here is a matter on which every parish
priest has need to begin the series of investigations and
reforms in his own conscience and on his knees before
God. Have I no evil root of indifference in myself? Have
I prayed for my people as I ought ? Have I prayed — I will
not say enough — for God, who is pleased in such wonder
ful ways to use the agency of mankind, even in inter
cession for the blessings which He is most desirous to
bestow, does not measure the exigency by the sufficiency
of our prayers, — but have I prayed really and intelligently
and with reference to individual cases? Have I shown
myself so mindful of, and so sympathetic with, my people,
that they have a reasonable right to believe that I am in
earnest? Have I got them to trust me in other matters
as well as spiritual ones, knowing, as I must do, that where
their treasure is there is their heart, and I must have their
heart in guidance if I am to help them to set it on the
true Treasure ? I do not say that he is a happy man who
can answer these questions in the affirmative ; for, if any
can, he must have too many burdens to bear to let him
have much happiness in the way of rest from misgiving ;
but, if any can, I am pretty sure that he will not find
indifference to his ministrations much of an obstacle.
Besides taking thought, and earnest prayer, and a patient
heart, and a ready willingness to speak the word, as, in
all due tact, courage, and simplicity, you see it to be

INDIFFERENCE 23
needed, we want steady and unflagging adherence to the
definite duties of our service : orderly and reverent worship
— nothing strikes the really indifferent so much as the
regular devotion, the punctual and systematic observance
of religious ordinances, as a real part of the discipline of
a pure, active, and sympathetic life. We want a careful,
regular, and orderly observance of all Church work, all
Church services and opportunities for doing good. Let your
people see that you value daily prayers for yourself, and
that you can deny yourself something for the sake of
them : let them see you regular in the school, regular in
visitation, taking pains and showing that you are ready
to take pains more and more, because you love your work
and honour it, doing it unto the Lord and not merely to
them. Give careful attention to preaching — I mean real
preaching — and by real preaching I mean, not the utter
ance of sensational paragraphs, however eloquent, which
might be preached in Kamtschatka with as much truth
and as little appropriateness as in Cheshire, but distinct
utterances with intended meaning and application to
the circumstances of the day, place, and congregation —
sermons that have been studied and written before
hand, if not with pen and ink, on the tables of the
heart and brain. Judge yourselves how far the neglect or
perfunctory performance of such duties may account for
indifference. But, granting all this, allowing all that can be allowed
for our own shortcomings and the effect which they have
in encouraging or producing indifference in our people,
there is, no doubt, much indifference in the air, and that
rather aggravated and emphasised by the existence of a
certain emotionalism and sensationalism in religious work,
ostensibly intended to counteract it. It may be that the
class which is likely to be affected by emotionalism and
sensationalism is different from that which is chargeable
with indifference, but it cannot be denied that the two
mischiefs play into each other's hands. One class is dis
gusted with sensationalism, another is provoked by in
difference — the sensational justifies the indifferent in his

24 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
indifference, the indifference justifies the sensational on his
appeals to excitement.
The indifference you complaim of may, however, be of
two kinds, either an indifference to religion altogether, or
an indifference to the religious teaching of our own Church,
which, however it may to us mean the whole of the best
religious teaching, does not wear the same aspect to all,
owing largely to the fact that for long years it has been
misrepresented, and, where represented at all, not always
represented in a wise way.
Mission Agencies.
A word on each. The obvious and natural remedy for
indifference to all religious life, where that indifference has
been proof against the earnest work, prayer, sympathy, and
example of a devout pastor, is the calling in of a mission
or revival agency, such as we have often seen employed
with good effect in past years. For the employment of
this agency we have, I think, sufficient means, if we can
only duly determine the moment and method of applica
tion. We have, in the Church of England Parochial
Mission Society, an agency that we call in by invitation
for a time ; we have, in the Church Army, an organisation
of which we may avail ourselves for the purpose of enlist
ing, directing, and maintaining continuous efforts to awaken
real life in the classes whose habits of thought and action
lay them open to the temptations of sensationalism, from
which, by the use of means to which they are amenable, we
want to rescue them and direct their too excitable feelings
into the right channels. I have myself become a patron of
both these bodies, not by any means in the idea that I was
to be committed to all their proceedings, but because I see
the need that there is for such organisation, and because
I should like to exercise some influence in the determina
tion where and how the organisation in question should be
called in. There are parishes in which the too frequent use
of missions would result in the weakening of the sense of
pastoral responsibility, and in the interposition of an
extraneous influence between the minister and his people ;

MISSION AGENCIES 25
there are parishes where the introduction of a Church
Army might lead to anything but harmonious and concen
trated action. On the other hand, there are parishes
which absolutely need frequent missions, and where any
thing like a Church Army would produce some measure at
least of awakening. But all should be done with some
reference to the authority and experience which a real
Bishop is expected to possess ; and to the due proportion
and occasion for the use of means for which it may be well
to have more mature consideration than the parish priest
by himself can afford to give. For the temptation to im
patience, weariness, and the tentative use of occasional new
expedients is very strong to the overworked and over-excited
labourer. And it may often happen that the short and sharp
work of a mission is unwisely preferred to the steady and
seemingly unremunerative drudgery of unappreciated ser
vice. I speak as to wise men, and I earnestly hope that
every clergyman who wishes to adopt either of these two
methods will in good time make his wishes known to me.
In the case of the first plan it is his canonical duty so to
do, for no clergyman, however able and excellent a mis-
sioner he may be, can lawfully exercise his gifts in the
churches of the diocese without my permission or licence ;
and, although the other scheme, that of Church Armies, is
not so directly subject to me, I have a right, I think — I feel
that my own interest in your work, if nothing else, gives
me a right — to be consulted. It is in the idea that, by
joint action, and by attempting to utilise such missionary
and organising ability as we possess in the diocese, we
might do this work more effectually than it has been done,
that I have had drawn up, by the kindness of a friend
who takes great interest in the matter, the scheme of a
Diocesan Society of Local Missions ; this I have notified
through the rural deans to the clergy, but its own modesty,
I fear, has insufficiently recommended it to your active
sympathies. Whilst I advise caution in the application of these
mission agencies, and would urge that they should not be
applied, as indeed they cannot be applied safely or effec-

26 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
tively, until the whole of the true and regular pastoral
system has been conscientiously carried into execution, in
regular services, teachings, and visitation, I must add a
further caution, that the work of a mission will be thrown
away, may be absolutely harmful, unless it is followed up
by a permanent system of work. Where a parish is
already well visited, a successful mission ought to pour in
new blood and nerve into the existing machinery of
services, classes, guilds, and the like : where it involves the
creation of new modes, increase of services, additional
societies, classes, and the like, the preparation for such
development of work must be part of the general pre
paration for the mission.
Where the indifference complained of is an indifference
to the distinctive teachings of the Church of England, not
accompanied by any hostility or unjustifiable competition
on the part of Nonconformist communities, the natural
remedy seems to be the steady teaching of Church prin
ciples in Church, in the schools of the Church, and by
lectures. To the true and intelligent Churchman the
principles of the Church of England are the principles of
true religion, her discipline the discipline of religion, and
her doctrines the doctrines of Christ : but this does not
involve the constant thrusting forward in Church of her
distinctive statements of practical religion, as the only
subject of preaching, or of her special sanction as the only
or chief warrant of authority. In the present state of
popular intelligence it is of very little use to enforce the
fulfilment of Christian duty by special ecclesiastical
ratiocination ; such a plan suggests as well as embitters
prejudice, and we may be justifiably reminded that there
are other articles in the Creed, which, in due proportion,
demand even more careful exposition than that of the
Holy Catholic Church. But, although I advise you not to
be always harping on the Church string, I must qualify
that advice by reminding you that your teaching must
always be in accord with it, and that honesty as • well as
faithful adherence to the truths you hold, honesty,
sincerity, loyalty, and true liberality, demand that you

CHURCH DOCTRINE AND NONCONFORMITY 27
should give it its proper place and its distinct propor
tionate recognition : special, constructive, and uncon-
troversial.

Church Doctrine.
Church doctrine must be taught in the pulpit. The
Church of England has a history which ought to form
part of the teaching in all schools of the children of the
Church, and the same teaching is an integral portion of
our general scheme of Church defence. But, as a means
of kindling interest as a counteraction to popular indiffer
ence, I can only recommend the circulation of good
books, and the diffusion by means of courses of lectures,
such as are common enough in the regions of secular
culture, of information on the history of the Church of
England, her relations to the Universal Church, the great
things that she has done and suffered, the continuity of
her life, and the debt that England owes to her ; the great
things indeed that her Lord has done for her and the great
work that He has set her. I trust that some part of the
machinery which I have suggested for the mission work,
the employment of the well-qualified men that we have
in our own diocese to do such work, may be used with
good effect. There must, however, be some scheme for co
operative teaching, or we shall be at the mercy of the old
text-books, and run a risk of sacrificing the object we
have in view to matters of personal and pictorial interest.
We want to have Church history taught simply and con
tinuously and rid of party colourings ; we do not want
Puritanism or ceremonialism made into standards of
spiritual life, or political programmes advocated as ne
cessarily connected with religious liberty or the realisa
tion of Church vitality. But the subject is too wide to be
treated at any great length here and now.
Nonconformity. It does, however, connect itself closely with another of
the hindrances to pastoral work which occupies a very
important place in the answers of the clergy, under the

28 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
term Nonconformity, Dissent, competition of other religious
bodies, and the like. Religious indifference has a twofold
relation to this subject : it may be pleaded either that the
differences between the Church of England and the com
peting communities are so small and unintelligible, and
have so little to do with the practice of virtue and the
good of society, that it is a mistake to recognise them,
true wisdom to ignore them ; or it may be pleaded that,
on the other hand, they are so deep and searching that it
is of little use attempting to choose between them, and
safer to stand aloof from the whole region of life in which
such quarrels and struggles are being carried on. The
result is in the former case indifference to the Church, in
the latter indifference to religion altogether. The practical
working of the first sort of indifference is seen in attempts
made, with the best intentions, at co-operation with Non
conformists for religious as well as social and philanthropic
designs — and this is a matter on which, delicate as it may
seem, it yet is my duty to speak distinctly. Can we really,
wisely and practically, combine with the competing com
munities for common religious services, mission work, or
education ? The initial question is, How and why are they
Nonconformists, how and why are they competing com
munities? The answer. Simply because they as com
munities hold some points so important as to outweigh the
advantages of communion with the Church. They object
to something that we have not surrendered, or they main
tain something that we have not enforced or even have
forbidden, and for that reason disclaim communion with
us. But it is said we may have co-operation if we will
waive the points of difference. In the first place, this
waiving of the points of difference implies that we of the
Church of England are less attached to our faith than they
are to theirs. We enter, therefore, into the combination
under an avowed admission that we maintain, as necessary
terms of communion, points which we do not believe to
be necessary, whilst the competing communities enter it
with full freedom to ignore doctrines and practices which
we profess to regard as intrinsically a part of our system.

NONCONFORMITY 29
The whole balance of earnestness and efficiency thus
seems, and really is so far as this is concerned, on the side
of the Nonconformists: they can say. You set up a
standard to which you do not adhere ; we adhere to our
programme, and, so far as the negative side of it is con
cerned, you are self-condemned. In the second place, the
waiving of points of ^difference implies that there is a
residuum of common truth and practical teaching on which
all Christian bodies may unite ; but it also implies that the
points of difference are not, in the actual working of the
religious teaching, intrinsically and essentially, in the minds
of the workers, a part of the religious working itself The
Holy Catholic Church is the subject of one article of the
Creed: the order and discipline of the Church, her doctrinal
and sacramental system, are surely a part of her essential
working : and to admit these in their proper proportion
and place in teaching, is to be guilty of a serious laches,
a want of courage, of honesty, and of that practical
wisdom which is wiser than any temporising, and more
effective than any finesse, diplomacy, or other form of
cunning craftiness. It will be said that the inculcation of
temperance, soberness, and chastity, the institution there
fore, of temperance and purity societies ; street preach
ings for the purpose, designs of houses of refuge, shelter,
and mercy, are works which can be set on foot without
accentuation of points of difference : but against this must
be set the two objections — the first that if temperance,
soberness, and chastity are to be inculcated without the
inculcation of the only motive on which the reform can
really be based — repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus —
the work and its fulfilment must go without their main
spring, and the result must be simply a social reform
which, however desirable in itself, should not be thus con
nected with religious teaching : that is, temperance, sober
ness, and chastity, inculcated with religious sanctions,
cannot be separated from doctrinal teachings ; inculcated
without religious sanctions, • they are not a matter for
religious co-operation, but for the employment of secular
agencies and arguments of temporal expediency. Let each

30 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
religious community teach temperance by its own argu
ments, but let them not reduce religious teaching to a
secular level by the association of elements destructive of
one another.
And the second objection is this, that the moment the
work has ceased to be one of mere awakening, and become
one in which discipline is needed, joint working will be
found impossible. You cannot, by the work of joint com
mittees of Churchmen and Nonconformists, carry on an
institution in which discipline, rule, and administration
shall be effective. The merest questions of prayers,
authoritative teaching, wholesome discipline, even forms
of worship, will divide opinions in such a body, and such
division of opinion can only end in the adoption of rules
and methods which will content no party, and depend
even for perfunctory fulfilment on those who have no
heart in the work.
Now I say this without prejudice : I fully believe that
a Roman Catholic or Nonconformist society may inculcate
temperance, soberness, and chastity, on its own principles
and by its own discipline, thoroughly well and efficiently ;
and I certainly believe that the ultimate principle on
which both would inculcate them, the principle of faith,
repentance, and obedience, would be the same in all such
teachings ; but it would be otherwise in co-operation, where
the practical administration would necessarily fall into the
hands of those who had the fewest definite principles of
working, i.e. into the hands of those who would practically
ignore or actually contradict the theories and practices of
the others. In saying this, again, I am not excluding many
sorts of direct co-operation, such as is the case with the
defence of religious education, the maintenance of hospitals,
the work of the Bible Society, and in general any plans
of philanthrophy and common defensive action into which
the controversies of doctrine and discipline do not enter.
The lesson of the educational history of the last twenty
years would furnish some important further illustrations of
this ; but I must pass on.

RELIGIOUS COMPETITION 31
Religious Competition.
The active hostility of Nonconformist bodies is quite
another point, and it is unfortunately complicated with the
influence of political animosities of a very repulsive and
dangerous character : repulsive, because these animosities
allow the use of means and weapons that are very un
worthy of religion under whatever form it is veiled ; and
dangerous, because they threaten the very fabric of society
both here and abroad. False accusations against classes
and against individuals as representing classes, the reitera
tion of disproved statements, and of unproved charges, as
recognised truths ; the attempts to sow the seeds of mis
trust and alienation between classes of men who ought to
be all at one, are weapons of which no religious man will
defend the use ; and the use of them, therefore, on whatever
side they are used, must be laid to the charge of the
unprincipled or ignorant politicians who see no harm in
sacrificing the religious interest and character of their own
party to the momentary gain of the particular end. I do
not hesitate to say that, socially, the great mischief of the
religious competition I speak of lies in its connection with
political struggles. But setting aside that, what is the
state of things of which we complain ? The competition
involves a waste of energy, the stimulating of personal and
social jealousies, the habitual viewing of the rival organisa
tion through a distorting medium ; struggles for particular
families, involution in personal quarrels, and the com
plication of religious difference with every species of petty
disagreements — worse than this — positive attempts to
thwart good work ; school boards adopted rather than
leave the education of the poor under the influence of the
clergy ; the use of authorised forms forbidden lest any
Church influence should be admitted ; the institution of
rival classes for instruction lest the clergy should get hold
of the people; the erection of rival places of worship where
they are not needed ; the absolute ignoring of the work of
the clergy, as if the whole field which they occupy were,
by the very fact of their occupation, crying aloud for
missionary agency of a purer kind ; and this coupled with

32 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
a determined effort to lay to the charge of the clergy the
existence of the very abuses which they are devoting
themselves to counteract. And again, the proselytising
work, scarcely justifiable on the most distinctly Dissenting
principles, which makes it a great object to detach men,
women, and children from the form of religion in which
they were educated, shaking thereby the very existence
of such religious feelings and sympathies as are still in
them, and supplying their place with those purely sectarian
antipathies which are, whatever else they may be, absolutely
barren and unfruitful religiously.
No one can contemplate this state of things with a
complete judicial calmness, and yet we must allow what
is to be said on the other side. Human nature is human
nature, and the motives of our highest actions are not
always unmixed. If one sectarian deems his neighbour
committed to deadly error, it is his duty as well as his
right to attempt his conversion ; and if he regards a rival
institution, like the Church of England, as doing more
harm than good, he is bound to insist so far as he can
on its abolition. The moral evil of schism, in its contempt
for authority, its self- will and perversion of truth, is
evaporated or precipitated in the first generation ; and a
sect that is two generations old acts, in its struggle for
influence, on principles analogous to, if not identical with,
those which the Church of England, were it not for her
belief in her own character as the historical presentment
of the Church of God to England, would be seen to act
upon in the same strife; and, even then, on their own
principles of Church communion and on their own theory
of the interpretation of the article of the Creed, it is hard
to blame them. But it is one thing to weigh the excuses
and to formulate the justification of the conduct and posi
tion of our opponents, and quite another to surrender our
own strongholds.
We cannot, then, undo, we cannot ignore, we cannot
undervalue, we cannot act as ignoring or undervaluing,
the mischief of this competition. What can we do without
widening the rift between classes and wasting our force

CHURCH REFORM 33
and means in perpetuating quarrels ? I wish, indeed, that
I could tell you an easy approach to the most excellent
way. I cannot tell you to despise attacks that are made
on the faith as well as on you. I cannot tell you to shut
your eyes against hostility which seems sleepless and un
wearied. I cannot tell you to spend your time in refuting
calumnies which are repeated all the more wilfully after
each refutation, or to answer charges which will gain the
more acceptance from your very willingness to debate
them. But I can" call to your mind the apostolic injunction,
" Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good " ;
prove your own way to be the better way by living up to
it and helping your people to do the same; keep your
hands from the weapons that are used against you ; do
not answer reproach with reproach, but with careful correc
tion of that which has laid you open to it ; let your work
be done in the best way, with more faith and energy and
prayer and watchfulness, not that it may beat the work
of the rival community, but because it is done unto the
Lord, in the belief that it is His work, and because no
work can be worthy even of the love and loyalty that you
bear to Him and His Church which is not done with
all the heart and mind and soul and strength. And
be not ashamed or dismayed if your competitors work
in the same spirit, even if their work runs counter to
yours ; there is One that seeketh and judgeth, and it will
be no loss to you if they also are approved in His good
time.
Church Reform.
I now come to a matter which is of very great importance,
both speculatively and practically ; a subject, too, which
can only be treated, on an occasion like this, with much
caution and very careful regard to persons and schools of
opinion, but which also that very need of caution makes it
most necessary to discuss at some length. I mean the pro
jects for Church reform which were put before us from
various sides during the last winter. These projects were
promulgated at the close of the elections of 1885, and, no

34 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
doubt, the moment chosen for the issuing of them was
determined by the alarm of schemes of Disestablishment
which was created before the elections, and which for the
moment was supposed to be quieted by the declaration of
some of our political leaders that no such projects should
be brought forward during the ensuing Parliament. After
the elections were over, and the immediate urgency of the
alarm had subsided, it was thought proper by several
bodies of men, actuated by, no doubt, the best motives, to
set out certain principles of reform, by which some of the
reasons alleged in favour of Disestablishment might be got
rid of, and by which also, taking advantage of the general
awakening of interest on the subject, the rulers of the
Church might find opportunity of remedying particular
evils and making distinct steps of progress. I will mention
three of these projects in the order of their appearing, and
then, extracting from them the several points which require
abstract treatment, dismiss the personalities concerned in
the question.
The first of these proceeded from a number of leading
men in the University of Cambridge, and was published
the first week in December. It was addressed to the
Archbishops and Bishops, and, urging the injury done by
the postponement of reforms, together with the oppor
tunity afforded by the revival of public interest, specified
three evils that need prompt correction — the sale of patron
age, the anomalies in the distribution of Church revenues,
and the difficulty of dealing with criminous and incompe
tent clerks. To secure these and other reforms, it very
strongly urged the need of a more complete development
of the constitution and government of the Church, central,
diocesan, and parochial, and especially the admission of
laymen of all classes, who are bona fide Churchmen, to a
substantial share in the control of Church affairs. In close
juxtaposition with this document there appeared a much
longer paper, treating more argumentatively on the rela
tions of Church and State as they are at present, and pro
testing against the idea of the disruption of the union, and
against Disestablishment and Disendowment as involved in

CHURCH REFORM 35
the disruption. This paper was issued, avowedly by mem
bers of the Liberal party in politics, and includes several
statements of principle and opinion on which I cannot now
enter, although, for the most part, I think that I may say
that I agree with them : the point of connexion, however,
with the first address is this : the statement that the Church
suffers both in efficiency and in popular estimation by the
difficulties which impede the rectification of various chronic
abuses without fresh legislation : but that above all it
suffers by the practical exclusion of its laity from definite
powers and responsibilities. To meet that evil it is pro
posed that facilities should be given to the Church for
virtually independent administration and legislation, which
might be done if lay Churchmen were invested with a
large measure of responsibility and power in its local and
general government. This statement of the evil and the
proposed remedy may be regarded, I suppose, as an ex
pansion of the last point urged in the shorter address.
Against the two, seperatim et conjuctim, the chief points to
be alleged are the extreme vagueness of the method of
remedy proposed, and the extreme inopportuneness of the
time chosen for proposing a remedy which, according to
the immediate conditions of the moment at which it was
attempted, might take the form of a mere bureaucratic
organisation, a shuffle of party expedients and class
prejudices, or such a fundamental and radical revolution
in the constitution of the Church of England as would
destroy its Catholic and historical character conceivably
beyond the possibility of restoration. There is an amount
of ingenuous temerity in the proposal itself which ought
not to prejudice us against it as a bona fide suggestion,
but which does certainly carry with it grounds for suspicion
that the signatories had imperfectly realised the difficulties
of dealing with the constitution of a body which claims
the character of a historical and living portion of the
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The second document, to which we must now look,
followed the Cambridge address after the interval of about
a week, and was signed by clergy only. The names

36 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
attached to it cannot be classed as belonging to any
definite party, and the language of the address itself is so
moderate in tone as to show that it must have been drawn
up with a view to the utmost comprehension. This
memorial urges five points in which reform is desired, and
on which the signers undertake to advise the Archbishops,
giving indeed their general adhesion to proposals, on some
of the subjects noted, which, it was understood, had been
supported by the Archbishops themselves. The first point
is the giving to the laity, by means of parochial councils
and otherwise, a clearly defined share in the administration
of Church affairs; the second is the reform of Church
patronage, including the proposal that no one shall be
appointed to a living without previous consultation with
the parishioners or their representatives ; the third, the
provision of security against ministerial inefficiency ; the
fourth, the reduction of anomalies in the present distribu
tion of revenue ; and the fifth, such a relaxation in the
Act of Uniformity as would make it lawful to vary the
services held in our churches according to the needs and
circumstances of the population in different parishes and
districts. Of this programme it is enough to say that it
has some advantage in point of definiteness over the Cam
bridge address, that it recognises more clearly the efforts
which have been made of late years to arrest the evils for
which further remedial measures are desired, and that it
does implicitly carry with it a recognition that the national
Church is something more than the mere association or
organisation for the maintenance of the form of religion
which recommends itself from time to time to the convic
tions of the majority.
The third manifesto was issued early in January, and is
signed by ministers of the Nonconformist communities as
well as by clergymen of the Church. It begins with the
statement that three centuries ago the Church of England
was reformed to suit the needs of those times ; that a fresh
reformation must take place to suit present needs; that Dis
establishment and Disendowment involve difficulties and
mischiefs which ought not to be incurred except in the last

CHURCH REFORM 37
resort; and that therefore the Church ought to be so
reformed as to becoine once more, in fact as well as in
name, the Church of the nation. That, in view of this
great object, the endowments of the Church ought to
remain sacred to religious uses ; the people to have a voice
in the election of its ministers, in the control of its funds,
and in the arrangement of its services ; and the basis of the
Church to be so enlarged as to include, as far as possible,
the entire Christian thought and life of the nation. The
Church of England would thus be nationalised, whilst its
ancient parochial organisation would be preserved for pro
moting what all Churches alike aim at, the spread of true
religion among the people. Among the clergymen who
have signed this paper appear several who signed also the
second address to the Archbishops, and whose names,
appended to such a document, must, I think, have slightly
astonished some of those who had joined them in the
former address, whilst the fact that they signed the third
must be allowed to explain the sense in which they had
signed the second. So far forth, the appearance of the
names in the third paper damages the importance of the
second ; a consensus so vague as to be compatible with
both expressions of opinion, losing a great deal of its
value, and considerably impairing the claim, which through
it the address to the Bishops may make, to be a fairly
representative memorial. The idea of a Church organisa
tion, offered in the third paper, difficult as it may be of
realisation, is definite enough, and cannot be logically
reconciled with the idea which I have, inferentially,
perhaps with too much confidence, allowed to be discover
able in the second. Anyhow, I am confident that a very
large proportion of those who signed the second address
signed it with a conviction as to the nature of a Church
absolutely incompatible with that which is formulated in
the third, and which yet some of their co-signatories have
set their hands to. I am sorry if this remark seems to
verge on personality, but it is really important in its
bearing on the weight to be assigned to either paper.
Whilst I am on this point, let me say how thankful I am

38 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
that so few, if any, of the Cheshire clergy have signed any
document of the kind.
I will offer now a very few remarks on the several points
urged in these memorials. Those points are, to put them
briefly, patronage, discipline, revenue, lay-help and control
as exemplified in the plan of parochial councils, the relaxa
tion of the Act of Uniformity, and the scheme of compre
hension, if it may be so called, which is described as the
extension of the basis of the Church.
Church Patronage,
I. The question of patronage includes three subordinate
points : (a) The abuse of the traffic ; {b) the intrusion of
unqualified or unfit clergymen into benefices ; and (c)
the right of parishioners to be consulted on the appoint
ment of a new incumbent.
(«) On the first of these points there is universal con
sensus: there is an abuse, and no one will defend an
abuse ; but there is less agreement about the remedy, and
there is much need of caution in regard to both theory and
practice. Patronage is property, and although, like all
property viewed rightly, it is a trust, and in some par
ticulars and in certain hands the idea of the trust is the
most important element in its character, it cannot be
divested of the character of property : nor, whilst it retains
this character, can it be entirely, so far as I can see, re
moved from the category of things that can, one way or
another, be bought and sold. The question then is, Under
what conditions and restrictions can the right of property
be so regulated as to minimise or prevent abuse : and how
can those conditions be so guarded as to preclude evasion
or collusion, the openings for which will be given alike by
too great severity and too great laxness ? We cannot, I
think, look for any great plan which, getting rid of the
proprietary character of advowsons, may lodge all patronage
in the hands of a body or bodies in which the idea of trust
will altogether expel the idea of property; although we
might hope for a time when the possibility of selling an
advowson would be restricted within very narrow limits as

CHURCH PATRONAGE 39
to both the seller and the buyer. But we may fairly hope
to see the sale of next presentations forbidden, donatives
abolished, and the rights of the parishioners to the service
of their parish priest protected against the risks and
mischiefs of sequestration for debt. Legislation is being
sought for all these purposes, as I have pointed out in the
first section of this charge.
{b) Against the intrusion of unfit presentees to benefices
there can be only one valid security — and I hope that
there is no risk of its not being a valid security — that is
the increase of the power of the Bishops to reject such
persons on reasonable grounds, and to extend their in
quiries into the fitness of candidates as evinced by their
former life and conversation. I am not of opinion that
such discretionary power could be put in the hands of the
parishioners, who always can make their opinions known ;
to allow this would be to make openings for divisions
of opinion, unseemly partisanships, and impertinent ques
tionings, on every vacancy in a living ; and no clergyman
could enter on a new charge without finding himself an
object of suspicion on the part of some, at least, of his
flock. (r) And this I feel to be the great objection to what
otherwise is a sensible and reasonable proposition of
reform: the proposal to consult the parishioners on the
nomination of a new incumbent. It is not, I observe,
proposed to give them a statutory veto on the appoint
ment; but a power of official or statutory remonstrance
very nearly approaches the character of a veto, and where
there is such a veto, there is a danger that it may be
exercised either so as practically, on the one hand, to be
illusory altogether, or on the other to lodge the nomination
of the incumbent in the hands of the parishioners. If we
attempt to restrict the number of times that a remons
trance or veto can be exerted, the power must become
illusory; the patron may nominate three impossible
clergymen one after another, and so force his own nominee
in the end. If the power be unrestricted the people may
refuse any appointment until their own nominee is forced

40 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
upon the patron. It may be said that the Bishop may be
treated in the same way ; so he may, I think, under
extreme circumstances, but the probabilities are less. On
the entire question of the right of parishioners, under any
circumstances, there is, as we know, great conflict of
opinion : it would be obviously most unwholesome to fill
up livings by election or competition ; the very idea of the
mission of the ministers of God is opposed to the idea
of such process ; the practical difficulty of appointing by
elective committees only shifts the evil one degree back ;
the unfitness of one class of parishioners, the incompetency
of another, the excitableness of another, are valid obstacles.
The balance between private judgment and authority,
between order and liberty, has to be struck in this matter
as in others. I confess that no plan satisfies me which has
been offered by the advocates of change ; and that I think
that nothing but the intrusting the Bishops with greater
discretionary power can meet the difficulty at all. I need
not say that personally I am not at all desirous of aug
menting the burden of responsibility which must follow
the increase of such discretionary power. I see that much
might be done by increasing the requisites for admission
to Holy Orders if that increase were not liable to the risk
of repelling really desirable candidates. I am awake also
to the fact that, unhappily, the unfitness of a clergyman
shows itself, develops, becomes a reality to himself and
others, in many cases, after rather than before his ordina
tion. But I must leave this point now — only I can assure
you that the whole question, in each of its bearings, and
indeed, every device that has been thought of for the
remedy of abuses, has been long and is still as present
to the minds of the Bishops as it is to that of the most
ardent of the reformers. I commend to your notice the
arrangement proposed in the Patronage Bill to which I
have already referred.
In closing my remarks on this section of the subject
I will just add that the essence of the trust in patronage is
the responsibility for exercising it to the benefit of the
parish. Patronage is not intended for the promotion of

CLERGY DISCIPLINE 41
the worthy, or for the retirement of the weary, nor for the
benefit of the patron's friends, nor for the encouragement
of ambitions, but simply that the best man for the place
may be put into the place that is vacant. I wish that this
were more present to the minds of men who desire pro
motion for themselves or for their friends, and that they
were conscious of the fact that to press on a patron for
a living or other preferment, any man whatever, on any
other grounds than that he is the fittest man for the work,
is seriously to embarrass the patron, and as seriously to
damage the prospects, in many cases, of the man who
allows the favour to be asked for him.
Clergy Discipline.
II. After what I have said already about the ecclesi
astical courts in the first section of this charge, and just
now about the exclusion of incompetent clergy, I will not
dwell on the question of the enforcement of discipline on
negligent and vicious clergymen. We all know the need,
we are all agreed on the main lines to be taken in securing
the remedy, and we all know the hindrances that have
hitherto operated to prevent legislation. You will not,
I hope, think that I am making difficulties, when I say
that, even here, there must be caution and patience : here,
also, the idea of property runs across the idea of trust;
here also the history of the past runs across the needs and
experiences of the present : we want to make justice
accessible without tempting litigation — and to make justice
certain on the one hand and equitable on the other.
Here, too, in the event of any improvement being devised,
we must needs hold by the good of the flock as a co
ordinate influence with the justice to be done on or for the
clergyman. A clergyman is more liable than most men to
attacks on his character ; and the damage accruing to his
reputation from a charge of evil is more fatal to him than
to any other man ; but it also involves a fatal harm to
a far wider circle than himself or his family even ; to all
who have trusted him as a faithful minister, or have been
guided to faith and worship by his means. His fall, or

42 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
even the reputation of it, is fatal to himself, is fatal to his
usefulness ; and in that word usefulness is wrapped up the
spiritual welfare of his flock. He needs to be guarded,
and he needs to watch himself ; he can risk nothing with
out risking everything. It is no slight responsibility to
undertake to do justice, or see justice done, under such
circumstances. Redistribution of Incomes.
III. The idea of such a redistribution of ecclesiastical
revenue as would get rid of the present anomalies suggests,
as soon as it is named, a series of practical difficulties. It
is impossible to deny the anomalies ; there are small
parishes with very large incomes, and large parishes with
very small ones ; the idea of merit, applied to patronage,
works very much in the direction of giving the better-
endowed livings to the abler men, and leaving the ill-
endowed livings in the hands ,of the less capable ; and so
incidentally to put the most important charges in the
hands of the least qualified clergymen : all clergymen are
not of the same capacity, or serviceable value ; an incum
bent's needs are affected by the number of his family,
the size of his house, the acreage of his parish, the popula
tion of his district : the existing endowments of the
Churches are parochial, and there is a certain theoretical
inconsistency, as well as a great practical inconvenience, in
transferring revenue arising from one parish to the support
of another.
There is no doubt that we ought to try in this as in all
other matters to bear one another's burdens. Suppose that
the richer clergy were to tax themselves for the assistance
of the poorer; suppose that all livings over ;£'400 a year
were asked to contribute ten or even five per cent, in aid
of those which are not up to ;^200 a year. Can an incum
bent with ;£'400 a year and a population of 7,000 be
regarded as a richer man than the incumbent of ;£;20o with
a population of 700 or 1,000 ? Can any voluntary taxa
tion be depended upon which does not take into account
the heavy deductions, which, in the way of rates, and

REDISTRIBUTION OF INCOMES 43
absolutely necessary outlay, besides absolutely necessary
contributions to works of charity and education, embarrass
from time to time the richest livings in the country ? If
such voluntary taxation were to be universal and assessed
on the net value of the preferment, the labour of assess
ment in the hands of a new staff of officials would cause
a heavy and costly deduction from the possible proceeds ;
and it would be a very heavy addition indeed to the
labours of any existing staff such as that of the Bounty
Office or Ecclesiastical Commission. Add to this the
amount of jealousy, heartburning, and discontent, which,
in connection with pounds, shillings, and pence, are apt to
insinuate themselves into the highest natures, and it may
be fairly questioned whether a voluntary self-taxation,
made compulsory by the pressure of clerical and popular
opinion, would not do more harm than good.
Let the Bishops begin by taxing themselves. By all
means, if the principle be admitted, but I think that you
will believe me when I say that, so far as my acquaintance
with Bishops goes, the sole result of self-taxation would be
the diversion to a general fund of money which already is
found insufficient for the special demands of this very sort
that press on them in their own dioceses, and which they
distribute already with the advantage of personal acquaint
ance and deliberate judgment on the particular cases
before them.
The alternative for such a plan can only be found in the
action of a general Commission, analogous in its character
to the present Ecclesiastical Commission, which might be
empowered to take over the property of the larger bene
fices, and with the consent of patrons, and I think, also,
with some sort of consideration for the parishioners, allot
a certain proportion of income to the general fund, from
which the poorer livings should be increased. This would
do violence to a great deal of local feeling ; but that ought
to be faced, and might be overcome perhaps by some
arrangement for clustering groups of parishes in eccle
siastical unions, just as the aversion felt forty years ago
to the alteration and diversion of Cathedral revenues

44 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
was overcome by the action of the Ecclesiastical Com
mission. But, granting so much, there are still the rights
of patronage and the law of ecclesiastical property to be
adjusted ; and of that I see no prospect.
In fact the question is not entirely a question of the
utilising of existing revenue. I believe that there are very
few of the largest livings in the country that will furnish
their incumbents with income sufficient to enable them
to educate their children on the level of the education
which they themselves received, and to insure their lives
for some provision for them in the rank which they have
held, and which in many cases they themselves have
earned. Cathedral preferments cannot be diminished
without seriously impairing the services of the Church,
without seriously diminishing the chances of improving
diocesan administration, without seriously damaging the
claims of the Church of England to be served by a learned
ministry. Into that I need not lead you now ; for nothing
can alter the existing circumstances of these institutions.
It may not be necessary for every new see to have a great
new Cathedral, with an endowed staff of canons. I believe
that it is best that it should be so, although it is not, on
the face of it, absolutely necessary. But this implies no
saving for the present, at least ; and injudicious economies
are a very unsafe way of providing additional revenue, at
any time.
It is urged, I observe, by some reformers that episcopal
incomes should be reduced ; that ;£"4,ooo or ;^S,ooo a year
is more than ought to be intrusted to one who still is
thought fit to be intrusted with the administration of a
diocese. It is not for me to speak strongly on such a
point ; I believe that I could still earn my bread if I had
no episcopal income at all; but I know that my whole
income would not even pay the interest on the sum
required at this moment to meet the Church wants of one
rural deanery in Cheshire. I will add that the whole
annual revenue of the episcopate exceeds, by a matter
of i"! 2,000 only, the sum raised by voluntary contributions
for Church purposes in this diocese during the year ending

REDISTRIBUTION OF INCOMES 45
at Easter, 1885. One cannot help feeling that such an
economy, whilst it would be a drop in the ocean of our
wants, would cripple the Bishops seriously in their local
undertakings, and seriously affect, with their power of
doing good, the authority that belongs to their position,
and, so far forth, to their office also ; and I for my part,
hearing and reading of such expedients proposed, am
forced into a misgiving that the reduction of the Bishop's
incomes is a much more prominent object in the mind
of the advocates than the improvement of those of the
curates. It remains, I think, for the present period of what is
called depression, to make the best use of our existing
machinery, and to call in the help of the laity, whose
liberality is well illustrated by the case which I have just
referred to, to do even more than they do to help us, the
Bishops and clergy, who are straining every nerve to help
the poverty of our brethren. It is not fair that the Church
of the nineteenth century should be living entirely on the
benefactions of men of the seventh or of the seventeenth,
however much they may have been developed or however
economically they may be administered. I fear that any
thing like a general redistribution could only be seriously
attempted by a revolution in the idea of property, and by
a defiance or abnegation of the rights of owners, which
it would be unwise to attempt, possibly immoral, probably
impossible to carry into effect. But very much now might
be done and done effectually by a greater effort to make
the most of present means. For a man to refuse to con
tribute to support a poor parish in Birkenhead because
a rector in Cambridgeshire has a large income is as absurd
as the allegation of such a reason is disingenuous. I am
afraid that, in what I have been saying, some of you may
think that I have said too much about the rights of
property — but I cannot conceal from you my belief that
those rights are a primary element in the complication, as
well as a most insuperable practical difficulty in under
taking short and sharp remedial action. Land and tithe,
pounds, shillings, and pence, are not etherealised or spirit-

46 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
ualised because in idea, or by law, they are called religious
endowments or spiritual revenues; nor ought they to be
so, even if the alternative is a return to a deeper than
apostolic poverty.
Uniformity. IV. The possibility of a relaxation in the Acts of
Uniformity, for the purpose of allowing a greater variety
of services, and more freedom of adaptation to particular
circumstances, is a matter which has called for a long time
for a good deal of patient consideration. It is a very
hazardous thing to tamper with the Prayer Book. The
moment the text of that formula is supposed to be touched
there is an influx of various projects of change : there is
the risk of ritual alterations, there is the risk of amateur
legislation, there is the demand for less rigid definition,
there is a demand for shorter services, there is the cry
against repetition, there is the prejudice against forms of
united prayer, there is the prejudice against uniformity itself.
Some amongst us may be inclined to think that, as all the
secondary, political, and secular objects for which origin
ally (over and above the idea of the unity of the spiritual
body) the Acts of Uniformity were enacted, have already
passed, or are rapidly passing away from the region of
practical politics, it would be well to abrogate these Acts,
and to trust to the sympathy of Churchmen, to the intrinsic
merits of the Liturgy itself, and to the unity of feeling that
must arise from improved education and acquaintance with
history, and the realisation of our religious solidarity, for
the practical solution of all difficulties. If we saw that the
increase of religious zeal, and the investigation of theo
logical truth, had, or ever has had, such an effect as is
contemplated, one would have more justification in appeal
ing to this sense of confidence ; but this belongs properly
to another point of the proposed reforms. I must only
observe now that, for the purpose ostensibly put forward
the greater adaptation of Church services to altered circum
stances, a short supplementary Act, supplementary to the
Uniformity Acts, would suffice— an Act which, maintaining

UNIFORMITY 47
the typical and normal services unaltered, would allow the
addition and substitution of more varied forms under com
petent authority. I myself should not agree to any proposal
which would substitute extemporaneous public prayer for
a form of united prayer ; it was never meant that public
congregational worship should be a substitute for, or dis
pense with the duty of personal and particular private
prayer. I would not surrender one line of the symbolical
books of the Church, the Prayer Book and Articles, the
Creeds, or definitive expressions of prayer and praise : I
would not surrender one of the repetitions of the Lord's
Prayer, for I never met a man who, being asked whether,
in one, two, or three repetitions, he was really conscious
that he had put his heart into every clause, and had asked
with spirit and understanding for everything that, when he
really sets to work to pray, he feels is wrapped up in those
clauses, could reply that he had done so, and could dispense
with a supplementary repetition. I would not, further,
alter a single rubric in the desire of more exact regulation,
or in more authoritative statement of points on which
liberty is practically possible. That, I think, sums up the
amount of resistance that I should make to change or
relaxation. I think that, even as we are at present situated,
more might be done in the way of separating the parts of
the Sunday service : certain portions of the prayers might
be marked for optional recitation whilst guarded against
doctrinal manipulation ; the reading of the Ten Command
ments might be dispensed with except in high celebrations ;
and, in the case of old as well as new services, alternative
forms might be suffered which involved no inconsistencies
of signification, no loss of substantial or essential elements,
and no introduction of material additional to, or capable of
prejudicial interpretation in relation to existing forms.
We must remember that we cannot, with all the freedom
of organisation that we claim, or would like to claim, for
one moment regard ourselves as the possible creators of
a new form of Liturgy and a new constitution of public
worship. We have to keep the deposit of the past, we have
to realise the Communion of the Saints ; we cannot build but

48 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
on the foundation that has been laid for us : and yet,
surely, we have profited little by the experience of the past,
entered little into the Communion of the Saints, dwarfed our
growth, stinted our building on the true foundation, if we
cannot venture on some freer action than has been yet
attempted. We do not trust ourselves, we do not trust the
clergy, we do not trust the laity, but we do trust in the
good hand of our God upon us, and try to develop in new
lines, and for fresh circumstances, the forces and the
methods alike that have been blessed to us and to our
fathers. God grant that it may be given to us to do this,
and be to us the author, not of confusion, but of order and
of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
The Laity.
V. By what means the laity of the Church of England
can be made to realise the responsibility which lies on them
as Churchmen, and so to justify their claim to exercise
a controlling . influence in the management of Church
affairs, is a question which demands very peremptorily the
careful attention of us all, clerk or lay : and the subject of
parochial boards, although that may very possibly be the
first point upon which the practical importance of the sub
ject turns, is itself only a subordinate feature in a far wider
and greater question. Without attempting on this occasion
to marshal an argument, let me touch upon some of the
features of the general question. No one can doubt that
the thorough working together of the body of the Church
in every part does involve the realisation and performance
of duties by laymen as well as clergymen. No one can
doubt that the weight of the influence of each part should
be determined by the real wisdom, experience, and sincerity
of the person, or section of society, that claims it. We
may talk of trusting the laity, but if we mean, by trusting
them, anything more than a rhetorical hyperbole, we mean
that we trust them, not as a mere majority of numbers, but
as, and so far forth as they are well informed and honest.
No honesty will qualify an ignorant man for deciding an
abstruse point: indeed, no honest man will pretend to

THE LAITY 49
determine questions in which he is consciously ignorant of
elementary principles : no amount of knowledge will qualify
an insincere man, or a mere party advocate, for being
accepted as a judge where any party question is concerned.
We might, I think, with some approach to safety, trust to
the honesty of the majority of men, but we cannot safely
trust to the knowledge of the majority, nay, we may con
fidently say that there never was a time, is not, and never
will be a time, when the intelligence of the majority is not
inferior to the intelligence of the minority — those who know
are the few, the many are not the wise. This being a
tolerably safe assumption, the approved mode by which the
honesty of the majority may avail itself of the wisdom of
the minority is our own elective and representative system ;
and, by that system, as exemplified in Parliament, the laity
of England for many centuries have had the opportunity
and exercised the power of influencing the management of
Church matters ; and at the present day, as I need not say,
the power of the laity exercised through constitutional
arrangements is very great, the appointments to all the
great offices in the Church and to an immense number of
livings being vested in ministers whose appointment is in
actual fact determined by the laity ; and no coercive legis
lation being possible in Church matters except by the con
sent and practically under the initiation of Parliament.
But with such control we are now told the laity are not to
be satisfied — each individual layman is to realise and in
dividualise his share of direct control. Here, however, comes
in another principle — that of authority. The Church is not
a mere body of laymen — it is not a body of self-associated,
or a self-organised association of a body of laymen, it is
a body with a hierarchy of order and a settled ministry,
a ministry indeed created for the benefit of the people,
but created, as we believe, by a higher authority, and on
authorised rules, and with a special organisation, which we
for our part do not think that we are justified in materially
modifying. There is authority, then, on one side, and
freedom of action, freedom of the way in which responsi
bility should be realised, on the other; and the balance

50 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
between the two principles has to be struck, and has been
struck generally in the history of those Churches which
claim a historical Church character, by some such method
as I have indicated. The clergy are the ministers of God,
and they are the ministers of the people. As ministers of
God they are bound to consider the good of the people first
of all : as ministers of the people they are bound to act on
the rules and principles laid down for them by the law
divine ; or by that idea of what the law divine is which they
accepted when they became and were accepted as ministers
of the people. In speaking of authority and a divine law,
you must not suppose that I am begging the question, that
every jot and tittle of the system of the Church of England
is so authoritative and unchangeably fixed as to be in
capable of alteration or flexibility in use. I do not main
tain any such paradox. But I do maintain that some parts
of the system are thus essentially fixed and inflexible, and
that the drawing of the line between those parts which are
and those which are not, is the function of authority and
not of private judgment ; is the function of the informed,
not of the uninformed ; is a function of law, not of arbitrary
will — of the organised Church, not of the individual, or
of voluntary associations of individuals, or of individual
parishes or congregations of a community, which maintains
common standards, even if it bases its claims on lower
historical grounds than the Church's one foundation. A
Church council, national or provincial, in which all estates
of the laity, as well as of the clergy, should be adequately
represented, and due influence apportioned to number, will,
and ability, is a desideratum, is the desideratum of the
times, and to provide in some measure for the constitution
of such a body, or to contrive a provisional expedient which
shall supply such a want until the time comes for the
development of a more perfect instrument, is the object of
all such efforts as we see working in Church Congresses,
Diocesan Conferences, and most signally in the new pro
vincial Houses of Laymen assistant on Convocation. But
such a council would still require a limitation of subjects
of legislation ; that is, the line between the unchangeable

THE LAITY 51
and the changeable parts of the subject matter of discussion
must be drawn beforehand. How much more, then, in the
cases of simple lay action ; how much more in cases of
direct individual action, individual influence, and local con
trol ? The analogy of secular institutions assuredly confirms
what I am maintaining. The laity of the law, as well as
the laity of the Church, have to recognise the limitation of
their executive powers within the limits and under the
guidance of authority : the police of the streets are not
superseded by vigilance committees — the work of the jury
man is not left to the unrestricted zeal of the amateur —
and public sense, if not the force of law itself, limits the
discharge of the duty of an advocate to men regularly
trained and properly accredited. Consider further how at
the present moment, and indeed in history generally, party
spirit, excessive alarmism, intolerance, and impatience for
definitive decisions, have been far more powerful motives
of action among the ignorant than among the better in
formed, among those who ignore difficulties than among
those who face them ; need I say more amongst the laity
than amongst the clergy ?
Who is entitled to call himself a layman of the Church
of England ? What is the definition, what is the test of
laymanship ? This question lies at the root of the matter,
whether the point at issue be the right to join in the forma
tion of a national or provincial or diocesan council, or to
be a member of a parochial board, or to claim on his own
terms the services of the ministers of the Church.
It has been maintained that every Englishman is so far
forth a member of the Church of England that he has a
right to avail himself of the services of the Church and of
her ministers. I should not dispute this, because I hold
that, as the Church is a missionary Church, not only every
Englishman, but every human being has a right to the
good services of the Church, so far as he is capable of
accepting them ; mercy to those who want mercy, prayer
to those who want prayer, communion to those who are fit
to be" communicants, and instruction to all who are willing
to be instructed. But I need not say that it is in no such

52 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
application that the position I have referred to is main
tained, and that it is without any qualification of fitness
that the claim is made for the exercise of control in Church
matters. This definition then, is, to say the least, illusory ;
a lay member of the Church who is to be qualified to make
any claim — admit it or not — of the kind, must surely be
one who is habitually a partaker of the sacraments and
ordinances of the Church, and who has never by any act
of disobedience or schism separated himself from her
communion. Such a person is a layman of the Church,
whether or no he is fitted to exercise authority, or to claim
a share of control.
When it comes, however, to the point of actually exert
ing authority, how is the proof of lay membership to be
found ? Well, simply, I suppose, by a system of registra
tion. But a system of registration throws the difficulty
only one step further back. Is the layman to be put on
the register on a certificate from a certain number of other
laymen, or on the direct acceptance of some test ? To the
system of certificate it must be objected that in ordinary
times the registration would be too easily neglected, and
in times of excitement it would be too easily abused. As
to the test system, we have to ask, What must the test be ?
I hope that the use of the Holy Communion as a test of
any kind will never be restored amongst us ; it cannot be
restored without a return to, and an aggravation of, the
miserable abuses which were the cause and justification of
the legislation that abolished it. Can it be a declaration ?
"I declare that I am a member bona fide!' Unhappily, the
bona fides is that of the seijse of the declarer, and if he
believes that every born Englishman is a qualified layman,
his bona fides will justify him in ignoring all the qualifica
tions that I have asked for as indispensable. Nor will any
form of test declaration which I have seen proposed
obviate all objections that may arise from the temptation,
either to unreal profession, as in the communicant test, or
to arbitrary interpretation according to the view of the
declarer. Whether the system of certificate, with all its
drawbacks, is not the best, I must not, as at present in-

THE LAITY 53
formed, peremptorily decide. It is, however, analogous to
the plan which is adopted for ascertaining the qualifications
of candidates for orders, and, troublesome as it might be,
would be a probable safeguard against abuse in ordinary
times. The idea of a system of registration on certificate or
testimonial, which, in one form or other, must be adopted
for the working of any organisation in which election and
representation is used, brings us at once to the question of
parochial councils. If we are to have any improvement of
local action in which the laymen of each parish may
individually or collectively be entrusted with a measure
of control in Church matters — who are the particular lay
men ? What is the nature of their control ? and what are
the matters on which they are to exercise it? I cannot
now go into the details of theory and objections on this,
and I have, by anticipation, already traversed the essential
parts of the subject. There is a preliminary objection —
the difficulty of improving the working of lay co-operation
has hitherto lain in the laxity of the laity, in their
unwillingness to realise their own responsibility or to share
in the work which seemed marked out for them. This has
left a great deal, a very great deal, of work on the clergy.
Now that the idea of lay co-operation is awakened, there
is a great risk that the working of it may fall into the hands
of men who are stimulated by the very exigency of the
moment into jealousy of, and interference with, the clergy
in their proper work : there may be a difficulty in drawing
the line of the work, but there is immensely greater mis
chief possible in the work falling into unfit hands, the
hands of the excitable, the idle, and the polypragmosynic.
As a rule men are easy to be found who will take the
work of the clergy off their hands, but men who will learn
and fulfil the duties of laymen are not so plentiful : you
will have preaching laymen and praying laymen, and lay
men who will undertake, on the least provocation, to
baptise infants, to Church women, to think themselves
debarred from the right if you decline their services at the
altar; it is not so easy to find men who will act as almoners.

54 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
and school visitors, seekers and helpers, judicious and
patient, of the sick and afflicted. There is a great risk that,
under such circumstances, the functions of the clergy will
be assumed by laymen, and the duties of the laymen left
to the chapter of accidents ; but the crying risk is that the
parochial council will be a field of struggle and jealousy
between two powers whose very life and work depend
on their being at one.
Suppose, however, that by some such means all laymen
who are bona fide Churchmen are admitted to a substantial
share in the control of Church affairs — that is, to a more
direct and individual share, such as would be realised by
the constituting of parochial councils with well-defined
statutory powers — we should have at once to define the
extent and prescribe the rules for the exercise of those
powers : to define their extent so as to avoid clashing with
the fundamental laws of the Church, and with the constitu
tion of episcopal authority, and to regulate their exercise
so that the clergy and laity alike should not be liable to
sudden revolutions and summary arbitrary changes. With
out for a moment supposing that these powers were to be
so large as to affect the basis of Church communion, or
even the obligation to obey the rubrics ; supposing that
they were to be employed so as to show respect for the
rights of property and patronage, and not to infringe
personal liberty in bona fide Churchmen, we may yet
understand that they would include " A voice to be exer
cised by the people in the eletion of its ministers, in the
control of its funds, and in the arrangement of its ser
vices." Granting that, in these matters, there is room for
readjustment — and fairly enough, as I think I have made
it clear already — it should be made impossible to impose an
unfit clergyman on an unwilling flock, it should be made
impossible for the endowments intended for the service of
the Church to be wasted on personal extravagances or
sequestrated for the debts of thriftless clergymen, and that
the arrangement of service should always have for its
determining rule the leading of the parishioners to the
glory of God. Granting all this, I am unable to see that

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 55
statutory powers can be intrusted even for purposes so
limited to fluctuating bodies of bona fide Churchmen : all
equally honest, no doubt, but very unequally informed,
very liable to arbitrary movements of change, very liable
to be divided by political and social, as well as personal,
partisanships. I cannot pursue the subject further, but I
must add that the necessary and only possible supplement
and corrective to the risk of arbitrary changes in service,
the entire abrogation of independence in the minister, the
abolition of authoritative teaching, and the loss of personal
influence for good, must be such an increase in the
statutory power of the episcopate as I for one should be
afraid to contemplate. Parochial councils, of authoritative
constitution and statutory powers, can only be kept within
the bounds prescribed by the idea of a national, historical,
catholic communion, either by a limitation of exercise,
which would prove the grant of power to be illusory, or by
submission to a review by the diocesan, which would be
most dangerous to authorise and hazardous to exercise.
There is an alternative in the constitution of a supreme
consistory which should revise all decisions of parochial
councils; but I venture to think that the powers which
would be dangerous in the hands of the Bishops would
be tenfold more dangerous, less constitutional, and more
liable to abuse, in the hands of a body constituted for
the express purpose, and not in harmony otherwise with
the system of the Church : a new Court of High Com
mission.
The Church of England.
VI. Without some such safeguard, however, we should
be but one step removed from that ultimate object of the
final scheme of reform : the enlargement of the basis of
the Church of England, so as to include as far as possible
the entire Christian thought and life of the nation. In
discussing this project or proposal we are bound, I think,
to try to understand what the proposers mean ; for that
we could for a moment contemplate the possibility of
accepting the words as we should ourselves prima facie

56 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
interpret them, is inconceivable. We believe the Church
of England to be founded on the Rock Christ, the one
foundation other than which no man can lay ; and to
tamper for one moment with the fundamental constitution
of the Church, as so based and built up, would be treason,
apostasy, and suicidal folly. We are not, however, obliged
to understand the memorialists as offering us the boon of
a share in the endowments of the Church in compensation
for a denial of what we hold to be of faith. Doubtless
they also believe that the systems which they wish to
incorporate with us, so far as to save the Establishment,
are equally well founded, and equally represent Christian
thought and life. We may insist that creeds, sacraments,
and orders are of the essence of the Church life — they
will allow it, interpreting creeds, sacraments, and orders
after their own fashion, and demanding for a body which
shall incorporate all the Christian life and thought of
England, the right and power to reorganise and reform,
even to the extent of revolution, all that in which historic
ally the Church of England is at one with the universal
Church of other times and other lands. So much, I must
again urge, we cannot grant ; we may work and pray to
recover all the Christian thought and life in England
into the Church ; we may be glad to remedy all the
abuses and to correct the misunderstandings that have
alienated any measure or portion of that life and thought ;
but we cannot — it is not a non possumus of obstinate will,
but a non possumus of the necessity of history — we cannot
do that of which even Almightiness is incapable ; fiovov
yap avTov Kal deoi a-repicrKerai, ayeVijra iroteiv aqer av %
ireirpayfiiva. Doubtless Christ's Church has gone through
developments, changes, evolutions, reactions, expansions,
and contractions, but it cannot, either in whole or in part,
retain its identity whilst it casts away that by which it has
grown to what it is, its hold on historic life.
Well, the Church of England does not so present itself
to the memorialists. What do they wish us to do ? We
cannot throw ourselves into particulars— we are not told
whether each congregation is to determine for itself the

THE CHURCH OF ENGIAND 57
basis of its communion, or whether all congregations are
to eliminate all points of difference; that is, whether the
newly constituted system is to be more intensely sectarian
on congregational terms, or more unsectarian in the rejec
tion of all limitation : to have a colourless State Church,
or highly coloured concurrent endowment. Into that we
need not go, although the idea, taken in conjunction with
that of the parochial councils, may seem somewhat appall
ing: a congregation that may be Unitarian in one year,
and Roman Catholic the next, on one vote in the board,
would require very determinate statutory powers in the
disposal of the mind of its minister.
But what is the force of the higher term, the widening
of the basis ? It can only be, I think, the removal of all
obstacles, in the way of creed, ritual, or order, to the union
for religious co-operation, of all sects that call themselves
Christians, in the comprehensive body of an established
and endowed new community. Is it possible, we may at
once ask, to widen the terms of admission into the Church
of England so as to admit a body which, whatever may
be its faults, errors, weakness, both historical and theo
logical, embraces a large share of the Christian life and
thought of the nation ? I mean the Roman Catholics. Is
it possible to embrace the society, of which I would speak
with respect, for its culture, its philanthropy, and its
dignified morality, bitterly as I grieve over its negations
and its opposition, the Unitarian body? and I believe
that, of the memorialists who recommend this widening
of the basis, the most prominent are Unitarians. Is the
Church to give up the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds,
that it may take away a stumbling-block out of the way
of the Socinian ; infant baptism to conciliate the Baptists ;
to modify Holy Orders to propitiate the Presbyterians,
or to abolish them to draw in the Independents? And
suppose it done, suppose the creeds expunged from the
Prayer Book, the sacraments reduced to mere badges of
admission to a body without creeds, the Ordinal cut out
of the system, and the articles cut down to the simplicity
of a western Islam, or esoteric Buddhism. Would the

58 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
diverse communities be so reconciled ? Would any Roman
Catholic, any Baptist, any Wesleyan, any Calvinist, enter
the new league? What concession would any of those
bodies make, and what good would it do to us or to our
cause, if we had any cause left that we wished to have
good done to ? Would the Roman Catholic surrender the
doctrine of papal supremacy ; would the Baptist surrender
his practice of baptism ; would the Calvinist surrender his
doctrine of election or perseverance ? I may be, I shall be,
told that caricature is not argument : but what have I
said beyond trying to realise what would result if an
experiment of the sort were to be tried ? Anything less
than this would mean the diversion of the property and
title of establishment from a religious, or historical, spiritual
work to the work of humanitarianism ; the devotion of
Church money and power to the alleviation of physical
distress, the improvement of secular education, and the
promotion of such culture as will diminish the temptations
to evil and the consequent tendencies to misery. If the
time is come for such a Disestablishment and Disendow
ment as that, in God's name let it be ; but all that can be
done without the casting down of the foundations, without
the denial of the Divinity of the Lord Jesus and the
renunciation of the Communion of the Saints. Let the
money and authority go, but leave to us, and not to us
only, but to all the conflicting, emulating, and opposing
sects, the measure of truth that we have each realised and
round which our faith and practice tries to circulate.
There is not in history, there is not in probabilities, how
ever cleveriy they may be calculated, any authority for
believing that surrenders of principle for the purpose of
comprehending discordant elements can conduce to unity
of thought or life or action ; under the name of liberty
all liberty is destroyed : the extinction of the discordant
elements involves the extinction with them of the life
which lives through them. All growth is by differentia
tion. If we were arguing with philosophers we might
argue further : but that which is possible in a school of
philosophy is not feasible in the administration of an

TPIE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 59
educating and authoritatively teaching Church. To leave
out the matters which are in dispute between Christian
schools, and substitute an unmeaning and barren peace, a
programme of good intentions from which all motive power
is subtracted, is the merest chimera.
The great fundamental evil of our present religious
history, as I have said or implied already, is not difference
of opinion, not even difference of belief, but the mischief
of self-will and the damage of disproportion. Think for
a moment ; the moral evil of schism is self-will — schism in
the second generation becomes communion, self-will is
exchanged for conservative heredity. There is conservatism
in schism, there is self-will in orthodoxy too. The loss in
schism is not moral, but spiritual ; he who is born in a
community apart from the Church loses the blessings of
belonging to the Church. Mind you, we can realise them
ourselves, but we have no means of evaluating the loss to
others, nor is it for us to limit, even in thought, their
relation to their God and ours. The Churchman who
refuses to realise his position is in a state of more certain,
far more certain loss than the schismatic who ignores it.
But when all this is considered, we return to the same point.
Practically the life of the communities which we are trying
to comprehend is wrapped up in, is essentially contained
in, their differentiated and distinguishing tenets. Are we
to surrender ours? Are they to surrender theirs? In many
cases they are but disproportioned realisations of the same
truths, but yet, by disproportion, set in opposition next to
contradictory ; they are the mainstay, however, of sectarian
life, and however far they may come short of what we
should wish to see them, they cannot be harmonised by
extinction. The atonement of our blessed Lord is the
key to the Roman doctrine of the Mass and to the Calvin-
istic scheme of justification. Where would Rome be with
out the one, or Calvinism without the other? He who
sees the oneness of the truth shall in time lead us all into
it ; but it will not be by making us cast away our partial
view, but by bringing us where we can see all and all
together.

60 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
Now and here we cannot and will not accept the idea
of a Church endowed and established, or disendowed and
disestablished, which would not contain one man who had
faith enough to kindle in him the desire of good works.
I should be very sorry that you should go away with
the impression that I am opposed to every proposition of
reform which has as yet been formulated, or that I am
prepared to accept Disestablishment and Disendowment
rather than make a single change in the constitutional
administration of the Church of England. It is true that
I am not prepared to concede changes which will be funda
mental, and I am not prepared to offer terms so hedged
in with safeguards as to be really illusory. I believe that
our existing system is sufficiently elastic to satisfy all the
conditions needed for growth and for the exercise of
harmonious and sympathetic liberty. I do believe that
of the dark features of the picture which reforming critics
present to us, one half is merely the result of false per
spective, and the other the vanishing and dissolving pre
sentments of evils of which honest realisation of privilege
and duty would make short work. I am opposed distinctly
to all such reform as would consist in pulling an institution
to pieces in order to construct out of its fragments some
thing that under the same name would have an altogether
different character and functions. I am opposed, distinctly,
to any reform which would deal with the system, which
I believe to be of divine organisation, as if it were a mere
human confederation or association fashioned and to be
fashioned by varying art and man's device. I am opposed
to all schemes which would take advantage of alarm to
introduce organic changes — that would involve the destruc
tion of what has been useful and beneficial in the experience
of the past in order to promote experimental changes that
march on mere theory, ignoring or ignorant of the work
that is now doing and that has been done — that would
undervalue or treat as non-existent, even if the promoters
did not declare themselves hostile to the parochial system,
the missionary system, the colonial church system, the
training schools and theological colleges, the remaining

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 61
quantum of religious education given in elementary schools;
and as I believe the Church of England to be the Church
of God to this nation, I would resist to the utmost any
attempt to alter her terms of communion or the con
ditions on which she would deal with other communities
that set themselves in array against her.
But, as I believe her to be the Church of God to this
nation, I trust Him who has called us to give us strength
to do our work — and I believe that in that strength we
can do it — we can realise the fulness of our obligations, of
our rights and duties. Patient and concentrated work,
careful economic administration, individualised and har
monised labour, the growing knowledge of true and humble
history, the more thorough realisation of corporate unity,
the more distinct appreciation of the great vocation where
with we are called, and above all, and through all, and in
all the certain assurance of our union with Him who is
the way, the truth, and the life : this will do the work.
He will bring it to pass. The history of the last fifty years
has shown that faintness and weariness have not overcome
us in doing His work who fainteth not, neither is weary.
There will be difficulties as long as there is life, and
hostility as long as there is energy, but this is the victory
that overcometh the world. If the Church of England is
not what I have believed her to be. Disestablishment and
Disendowment are very unimportant matters, and no re
form or readjustment can make the dead bones live : take
away her battlements, for they are not the Lord's.
Yet, while I advise quietness and confidence in our true
strength, I cannot, I do not conceal from myself that
change must come, and very serious change may come
very quickly. I, for one, can read in the history of our
country no indefeasible privilege of perpetual progress, no
immunity from decay, and no right to avoid the responsi
bility of misused opportunities. If so be that material
alterations in the condition, position, and destiny of the
nation are upon us, material alterations in the condition
and position of the Church of England are upon us too —
I will not speak of destiny in such connexion, for the

62 PRIMARY VISITATION CHARGE
Word of the Lord standeth sure. Yet all the more, not
so much the less, all the more reason, why we should go
about our Sion and tell the towers thereof, mark well her
bulwarks, set up her houses, for it is for those that come
after even more than for ourselves that we have to guard
the deposit — that they also may praise the Lord.

VISITATION CHARGES

DELIVERED IN

^be Diocese of ©yforb

FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
JUNE, 1890

The Visitation System.
THE visitation system itself seems to furnish an apt
illustration of the truth, so often suggested in our
national history, of the new uses to which old institutions
in the process of time become applicable. I need not
indeed recur to the times when it was thought necessary,
by conciliar enactment, to forbid an Archbishop to conduct
his metropolitical Visitation with more than fifty horses in
train, or a Bishop with more than thirty : in those days
Archdeacons had to be restrained from taking more than
seven ; Rural Deans indeed might, as in many cases they
have still, a modest pair, whilst all alike are forbidden to
wile away the tedium of the expedition with hawks or
hounds. Times were changed after that, and yet scarcely
brought into the measures of modern fashion, when, as in
Queen Elizabeth's time, the clergy of each deanery were
expected, at the General Chapter held after the Visitation,
to prove by examination their progress in the knowledge
of the Gospels in Latin and in English ; or when, as in the
following century, the churches were prepared to receive
the diocesan with a fumigation of frankincense and a new
strewing of rushes. The modern business of the Visitation
Court is small indeed compared with what it was when
presentments of every moral or legal irregularity of laymen
and clergy alike found their way into the returns, and the
great array of jurisdiction for the correction of souls in the
spiritual court was marshalled side by side with indict
ments and presentments before the king's justices, for
F 6s

66 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
identical or similar offences against the wholesome dis
cipline of religion. Changes in the law of the land have
removed very many of the old articles of inquiry from the
view of the spiritual jurisdiction, and, although it is still
very greatly to be desired that a readier and more expe
ditious method should be devised for dealing with undeni
able abuses, it is not a matter of regret that the temporal
law should have set itself to work for social and moral
reformations. When perjury, bigamy, jactitation of mar
riage, and the whole string of presentments connected
with matrimonial suits, slander and defamation, rough
practical jests, as well as false doctrine, heresy, and schism,
were matters not only of inquiry, but of action resultant on
inquiry, and leading to excommunication, with the con
sequent exertion of the secular arm, it is quite possible
that the Bishop would require a strong staff of officers for
his safety, and of lawyers for his counsel.
If the improvement in our laws has relieved us from
much business of a kind with which the clergy never were
especially well qualified to deal in the direction of coercive
discipline, the growth of a more distinct sense of religious
propriety, and honesty in the recognition of obligations,
has made another, and that the chief surviving topic of
formal visitation, much easier to be handled. The con
dition of the churches and church goods, although not
universally as good as we might wish it, is now so well
watched and so carefully maintained, that the Visitation
questions are capable of very formal and uniform answers
from year to year. The churches that are dilapidated, ill
furnished, or squalid, are the exceptions in every diocese
to the rule ; and, I think, in this diocese they are very rare
exceptions, and they are rapidly becoming fewer, notwith
standing the depressing influences that have now for so
many years been affecting the agricultural counties. Of
this, in relation to our own diocesan administration, I may
have something to say by-and-by. The inquiry into such
matters is still very useful as a reminder, and a spur to the
successive officers of the several parishes, that they should
see that the charge which they solemnly undertake be

WHAT IS A DIOCESE.? 67
adequately fulfilled, and the interests committed to them
take no detriment by their neglect during their tenure
of office. The questions, although they may be easily and
formally answered, are not matters of form, and their very
recurrence may very well be made, by a devout parish
priest and energetic churchwardens, an occasion of effort
for improvement.
What is a Diocese?
What is a diocese ? I do not ask myself for any logical
or even historic definition, but just so much of a description
as will help us to realise our relation to the general body
of the Church, and to our own subdivisions of work and
duty. In relation to our National Church, we, as a dio
cese, have a more distinct character than is represented by
the mere geographical expression. We are a Bishop,
clergy, and laity, within a definitely drawn outline of
country, realising an administrative unity both for common
objects within, and for common objects without, our own
border. The Bishop, as the minister of the Church of his
diocese, has his place, not exactly or technically as a
representative, in the Councils of the Realm and in the
Convocation ; the clergy have their representatives in the
Convocation and, in common with the laity, in Parliament ;
the laity have their parliamentary representation consti
tutionally; and both in the Central Council of Diocesan
Conferences, and in the newly organised House of Lay
men of the Province of Canterbury, a place, not yet
perhaps recognised by constitutional law, but quite as
influential as to the practical politics of the Church as
if it had, and only waiting for the formal recognition.
These are the outward expressions — and for the moment
I am not going to treat them as more — the outward
expressions of our relations to the Church of England.
We have a common right and duty to the great body
in whose care is historically deposited the Christianity
of the English nation. I am aware that I am using lan
guage open to criticism, but I am speaking in general
terms, and not intending in the slightest degree to reflect

68 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
on forms of Christian belief and organisation that are
outside our own communion. What I need say about
such I shall reserve to another part of this charge. Look
ing deeper, we recognise further our position as contribu-
tories to the active work of the Church in its collective
capacity, as a great missionary agent to the heathen, as
a great educator of our own people, as a sharer, if not
claiming the character of originator, of all plans of bene
ficence which have a general bearing, and are worked on
principles which form a vital part of the teaching of the
gospel which we preach. This function is discharged by
the great societies of which each diocese has its own
subsidiary association or branch, and which, although not
worked by the exact organic machinery of the Church, are
worked by men who have their place in that machinery,
and, in practical detail, in the closest co-operation with the
parochial and diocesan organisation. And looking deeper
still, do we not feel that, in that innermost life which,
through the help that every joint supplieth, maketh in
crease of the body to the edifying of itself in love, we
all alike, having c^e faith, one Lord, one baptism, one
form of worship, one scheme of working, one great end
and aim in relation to Church and nation, are a living part
of the great body which is to us, in flesh and blood, in
mind and spirit, the presentment of the mystical body of
the Lord ? By our prayers and offerings, our sympathies
and our co-operations, we do try to realise this, that we
are Christian, Catholic, English, Churchmen.
But in proportion as we realise our relation to the
Greater Body, are we so sure that we realise our relation
to the Smaller Members, the subordinate organisms and
organisations that lie within our own area ? I do not
merely mean, do we regard our relations to one another in
rural deaneries, archdeaconries, parishes, as we regard our
relations to Parliament, Convocation, or the great religious
societies : we scarcely can be expected to do it so vividly.
I do not think it well that we should run the risk of con
fining our Church life to the local and languid channels
that such organisations present to us, any more than that

WHAT IS A DIOCESE? 69
we should, in realising our relations to the greater body
of the National Church, restrict or limit or narrow down
sympathies that we should give to the whole of the
mystical body of the Lord. But there is a risk both ways,
and there is a most excellent way of treating both sets of
obligations. The general relations by themselves are apt
to grow diffusive, unreal, superficial ; there is no influence
in the world so weak as indefinite Christianity : the local
ised sympathies by themselves are apt to sink into mere
personal likings and dislikings, restricted and ungenerous
exclusions, vanities and vexations of place and party, and
personal fussiness. We laugh at the good Churchman,
clerk or lay, who is always on platforms, or in London on
committees whilst his own parish is going to the dogs ; we
grieve over the good Churchman who looks at the embel
lishment of his own parish church, with elaborate expendi
ture, as the one object in life, when the children of his
neighbour's parish are, for the lack of that which he might
have easily spared them, deprived of that religious teaching
which he, at least, believes to be a part of the training that
they ought to have in the beginning of wisdom, the praise
of which endureth for ever. In saying this, you will under
stand I am pointing out a risk, not arguing or wishing to
argue on experience of facts.
But, all said and done, it is by our dealing with the
direct and concrete occasions and personalities that our
duty is to be done to the great body of the Church ; only
by the very terms of the proposition it is to be a dealing
as wide and as well organised as practical dealing can be.
And the diocesan arrangement of the Church is itself, and
by its subordinate dispositions, organised for this purpose,
to enable us to work in practical sympathy for collective
ends — the practical and living diffusion of spiritual energy,
not wasted on mere general aspirations, or exhausted on
uneconomised prodigality, but so husbanded as to produce
its fullest work on the accessible area. In a word, certain
of our duties to the Church of England become most
practical in our working in our own diocese ; certain of
them, I say, not all, for it would be absurd to exclude

70 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
either of the other sets of areas. Only, as I must repeat,
it is in proportion as we realise these that we are most
likely freely and sensibly to recognise and discharge those.
Hindrances to Work, (a) Nonconformist Competition.
I have no doubt that the competition of Nonconformist
communities is to the faithful parish priest a source of con
stant disquietude — a disquietude which it is almost im
possible for an outsider to realise. It is a painful thing to
have in your parish a centre of disaffection ; an attraction
towards which everyone whom you have occasion to re
prove, or to whom it is your duty to give unpalatable
advice, or whom, out of mere inadvertence, you may have
offended, may draw near, knowing that he revenges him
self on you by the desertion, and palliating his vindictive
feeling by the idea that he is not forfeiting his right to call
himself religious. It is an additional grief when you find
the children whom you have tried to educate as children
of the Church drawn away from you to teaching which,
if convinced of your own mission and its essential truths,
you must believe to be in error. And there are other and
perhaps more seriously personal mortifications in the back
ground. But these evils are evils which may be overcome,
and can only be overcome, by good : and you must not let
yourselves be provoked to conduct which makes or shows
a festering sore. The evil is not in the direct competition
of the Dissenting bodies, which consist of men who be
lieve in their system probably as strongly as you believe
in yours, who unquestionably have the good of religion,
as it has presented itself to them, as the main object of
their work. The evil is in the use made of the competi
tion. And that must not be visited upon them. I should
recommend in all such cases the maintenance of such
friendly relations as are possible and consistent with a firm
maintenance of the obligations to which you are bound.
You cannot take part in the services that are based on
principles opposed to those of the Church, nor in the
management of institutions in the administration of which
questions of discipline, order, and ecclesiastical govern-

POLITICS 71
ment continually arise ; but you can avoid and disarm
hostility : you need not expose your sensitiveness, you
must not encourage the bitter relations which put it in the
power of everyone who may have a grudge against you,
caused or causeless, to harass you, and which actually
tempt them and you to the exercise of unchristian feelings.
A word on this is sufficient, and perhaps, under the cir
cumstances, it is not uncalled for.
(*) Politics.As to the harass of political excitement and the
hindrances of party obstructiveness, I cannot now say
very much. The former touches on the wide subject of
Church Defence, and the latter on party questions which
are far too large to be taken as a subdivision of a long
charge. But I may say this much : we are often told
that a clergyman should have no politics ; we are almost
as often reminded that a clergyman is also a citizen — and
if he is a citizen he must have politics, and if he has
politics he must be a partisan. I say, let him have politics,
let him be a partisan if he likes; and if he has politics
and is a partisan, he must not expect that all his parish
ioners will have the same as his, or will conduct their
tactics as he does his. The mischief lies not in the exist
ence of parties in politics, but in the conduct of party
warfare and in the maintenance of party spirit. Let
politics be kept out of the regions with which they are not
concerned, and let the partisans content themselves with
struggling with lawful weapons. It is impossible, you
say ; anyhow, it is unhistorical ; never were there politics
that kept themselves within limits of area, never was there
a party struggle fought out by absolutely pure hands.
Very likely not ; but the parish priest may well content
himself with trying to do what he can in the right direction,
not skirking responsibilities, but not yielding to party
temptations. And if he does, he will, however much he
may grieve over the divisions of his parishioners, or their
being led to join in attacks on the Church and on himself,
or their being misled into absolute hostility to what he

72 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
loves and honours, he will not break his heart over what
cannot be helped, or commit himself to assertions or an
attitude that shall make reconciliation impossible when
the time of the tyranny is overpast. I acknowledge, it is
hard to bear : we cannot afford to say we do not care ;
but there is the remedy of faithful work and prayer, and
a stay under God in the maintenance of a pure conscience.
(c) Party Divisions.
As to the hindrances arising from our own party di
visions in Church matters — cases in which a man refuses
help because the ritual of the parish church is such as he
does not like, or will not be churchwarden because he
finds fault with this, that, and the other detail ; or where
petty malignity, such as is always at work in one way or
another, takes advantage of controversial points to create
embarrassment, obstruction, or division, such as is the cry
of no popery, ritualism, and the like — I can only recom
mend caution against giving causes of offence, tolerance
of opposing views where they are sincerely held and
temperately maintained, and the last somewhat forlorn
counsel of patience in cases where the party evil takes
its more acute and inveterate form. It is not a useless
or uncomforting advice, patience, even if it seems a forlorn
one. No good cause persecutes — the very use of malig
nant hostility condemns so far forth the cause of the party
that employs it, and consoles the sufferer with the feeling
that his position must be the right one, when so much
of evil influence, unmistakable intolerance, with all its
weapons of prejudice and misrepresentation are arrayed
against it. I do not warrant the conclusion as logical, but
I can recommend it as comforting, and, what is better
than comforting, as carrying with it a warning that may
keep the patient man from being provoked to evil : be not
overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. The old
heathen was right, when he saw that patience helps to
turn the adversary's weapon against himself—" Fit melius
ferendo, quicquid corrigere est nefas."

UNFIT CLERGYMEN 73
((f) Unfit Clergymen.
Among those points which, although by no means of
minor importance, are still capable of very brief discussion,
one is the attempt which a Bishop in these days must
make to secure that the welfare of the Church shall not
be injuriously affected by the carelessness of the clergy,
or of churchwardens acting in the vacancy of livings,
as to the character and antecedents of the clergymen
employed to take occasional or temporary duty. It is
by ho means a pleasant part of a Bishop's functions to
have to be constantly reminding his diocese of this ; nor
is it any compensation worth considering to be told that
the scandals arising from this carelessness are compara
tively few. In my experience they are not few, they
are not unimportant: in some parishes they are re
current ; in all cases they are scandalous. It is no secret
that there are in this country a considerable number of
disgraced clergymen : that is, of men who, by misconduct
of one kind or another, have so far disqualified themselves
from being able to do useful work that they are practically
cashiered. There are some who have been removed from
their parishes by the direct process of law for offences
which, although disgraceful, are not criminal. There are
some who have resigned their ecclesiastical positions rather
than face inquiries. There are some whose habits have
become so notorious that no one who exercised the most
superficial circumspection in making inquiries would dream
of nominating them for curacies. These men are in many
cases able and plausible — men who, if they could be re
covered from the evil habits they have formed, might be
useful, very useful indeed, but who cannot be trusted to
exercise any self-restraint, or who cannot escape the
notoriety given them by sins which they may have truly
repented, but the scandal of which continues and must
continue to adhere to them. Many of them are constantly
seeking work, advertising in respectable newspapers, and
able when communicated with to produce testimonials
from credible referees, whose experience of them has been
anterior to the disqualifying fall, or who have never heard

74 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
of it at all. And there are, I grieve to say, even in a
diocese like this, which has been carefully watched so long,
cases in which such men have been employed, have been
tried and failed, and brought scandal on the Church, in
spite of all cautions continually repeated. There must
be, I conclude, clergymen in charge of parishes who
employ such people, to the extreme risk of their parish
ioners, to the great diminution of their own usefulness,
and to their own eternal shame and sorrow when they
discover what mischief has been done. It is of no use to
say, why do the Bishops suffer such things to take place ?
It is not the Bishops that can help it : they cannot issue
a list of interdicted clergy ; no law would authorise or
suffer that. They cannot from week to week inquire who
is going to take next Sunday's service in each parish, nor
secure that it shall be taken by the person who answers the
question. They can only urge the clergy to greater care
fulness, and then wait until the mischief is done which
they have to try too late to undo.
Now I know that there are hundreds of parishes in the
three counties that are, so far as this matter goes, abso
lutely safe, parishes in which the incumbent will not absent
himself for a single day unless he leaves a substitute
whom he trusts as firmly as he would himself, who could
not enjoy a fortnight's holiday unless he was quite sure
that his parish was as well looked after in his absence as
in his presence. But there are a great many parishes
where this is not the case, in which anyone with fairly
decent testimonials may find employment ; and there are
some in which the only consideration about the employ
ment of a locum tenens is how cheaply his services, what
ever they may be, can be procured. And for these three
sorts of parishes we can have but one law of administra
tion : the restriction which is a necessity for the careless
clergy is a restriction which the most careful must learn to
tolerate for the general safety.
Of the two expedients which have been adopted by
way of security and insurance against the intrusion of
unworthy clergymen, one is the establishment of a trust-

UNFIT CLERGYMEN 75
worthy agency, to which in emergency the clergyman who
is anxious for a holiday, or is obliged by ill-health or
business to absent himself, may apply for the recommenda
tion of a fitting substitute : there has long been in Oxford
an agency of this kind, which has been generally successful
and safe. The official list of clergymen approved or
sanctioned by the Bishop, and outside of which the agency
in question does not recommend any clergyman for em
ployment, has been a great safeguard for the surrounding
parishes, and continues to be so. During the last year
a second agency of a more definitely diocesan character
has been set on foot by Mr. Trotter, of Ardington, which,
proceeding on the same lines, will probably have a wider
area, and eventually a larger list of employes, and which
likewise will recommend no one who has not the Bishop's
recognition. There are in London agencies of still wider
extension in the offices of particular societies, the A.C.S.,
for instance, and, I believe also, under the auspicies of the
E.C.U. : possibly other societies. And there are also
offices of more speculative and private adventure, where,
we may suppose, out of mere regard for their own interests,
the agents would be careful about their recommendations.
But the best of these are not safe, and the less than best
are like the newspaper advertisements, an open fountain
for scandals. I think that I am not going beyond what
I am bound to do, when I beg the clergy and church
wardens not to choose their men by the advertisements,
and not to apply to any agencies which are not either
directly or mediately in relation to the diocesan scheme.
It would put you to shame and horror if I were to give
public utterance to things which have happened within
the last few months by reason of the neglect of such
precaution. The second expedient is the direct reference to the
Bishop himself in all cases : it is one which involves a great
deal of labour in the way of correspondence, but it is a
task which I am quite willing to undertake ; and it is the
canonical way of securing the prevention of scandal. It
is that which I have, following the example of the previous

76 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
Bishops, and the very words and instructions of the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, sketched in my circular letter to the
clergy, and which is reprinted in the Diocesan Calendar.
It is a rule which every Bishop on his appointment to his
see has to consider and reissue, and the enforcement of
which ought to be regarded by the clergy as an innova
tion, merely because they have had to be reminded of its
existence as a part of the diocesan government. It con
tains four points : —
(i) The keeping in every church of a book containing
the names and addresses of all strange preachers. I wish
that that provision should be extended, and that in every
church a book should be kept in which every sermon
should be registered, with the name of the preacher, his
text, and the amount of the collections made in church at
each service. Such a book is kept already in many
churches, and might be in all with very little trouble and
very great benefit.
(2) That no incumbent allow any clergyman unlicensed
by the Bishop, or personally unknown to himself, to officiate
at all in his church without having seen his letters of orders
and testimonials, or the permission of the Bishop who has
seen them, and that in all cases the second occasion of the
kind should be signified to the Bishop.
To these are added (3) a direction that no temporary
arrangements should be made with an unlicensed clergy
man except with the Bishop's permission, and (4) that no
clergyman absent himself at all without providing due
Sunday and weekday ministrations for his people.
Of the last two I need say no more than that No. 3, from
the very nature of the case, is fairly well observed, and
No. 4 must be left to the conscience of the particular
clergyman. It is the second on which a small amount of
difficulty and increased correspondence turns. And this
is specially felt in the large parishes where clergymen of
influential position and with a large circle of clerical friends
are at work, where it is certainly irksome to have to report
to the Bishop every instance in which an offer of help,
often sorely needed, has been accepted. It is irksome, and

UNFIT CLERGYMEN 77
it is.no small tax on the Bishop either, but if the remedy
for the evil, which undoubtedly exists, is to be practical, it
must be universally applied, and the strong must endure to
bear the infirmities of the weak. There are ways in which
the pressure might be relaxed in the few large parishes
where it is felt ; for instance, a copy of the leaf of the
preachers' book might be communicated to the Bishop
monthly, so that no great risk could be run of unworthy
or unfit persons intruding themselves under the screen of
personal acquaintance or special exigency. It is a very
small grievance sentimentally, and practically need be
none at all.
Let me recommend this matter very seriously to the
attention of all concerned ; and all are concerned in keep
ing the evil and dangerous element out of the way of our
congregations. And let me, finally, urge upon you to
remember that no amount of zeal will palliate any the
smallest amount of carelessness ; that no confidence of
partisanship will excuse you from responsibility for the
most careful examination of the character of those whose
services you avail yourselves of ; that the most interesting
sermon in the mouth of a man who is found out to be a
drunkard or profligate is only an aggravated scandal ; and
that it is quite possible for a man of good address and nice
manners to make himself so acceptable in a parish, that
when mischief comes he will be not without friends who
will refuse to accept the clearest evidence of his delin
quency. There is, too, the case of men who, having sinned
and repented, appeal to us for fresh probation and oppor
tunity of recovering character and usefulness. For all such
let due consideration be shown, and such sympathy as is
safe. But no Bishop and no parish priest is justified for
one moment in making one parish or one section of his
flock the corpus vile of an experiment by which he can try
whether the penitence of a sinning clergyman, a criminous
clerk, is sincere or not. The people of God are not to
be sacrificed or put in hazard even for the rehabilitation of
the most promising penitent.

78 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
Faculties. I ought not perhaps to close this section of my charge
without a word on a subject which has been a good deal
discussed since I came into the diocese, and about which
there is a good deal of division of uninformed opinion ; I
mean that of faculties for alterations in churches. I believe
that it is generally admitted, that without such legal sanc
tion as the system of faculty offers, no alteration can be
safely, securely, or lawfully made in the fabric or structural
furniture of churches ; but there are objections to the
application of the rule on the ground of expense, on the
ground that the regular process in such cases is such as to
provoke or invite opposition from discontented or obstruc
tive parishioners, and on the ground that such small altera
tions as the insertion of windows of stained glass, and the
like, are too trifling to be subject to such strict conditions,
and that the permission of the Bishop himself, informally
given, would suffice amply for security in such cases. I am
quite willing to give their due weight to such objections ;
but I am quite sure that all together do not nearly out
weigh the importance of the rule and its observance. So
far as the question of expense is concerned, the objection
is met by the reduction of fees in the case of unopposed
faculties as promulgated in the paper of Rules, which, with
the assistance of the Chancellor and Archdeacons, were put
out in 1889. The small fee required is certainly not too
much to pay for the legal security which is obtained by
the faculty. The objection that the enforcement of the rule
may be made a hindrance to church improvements, and
invite or provoke opposition from hostile or obstructive
parishioners, is more important, and the reasons that over
rule it are, as it seems to me, much more weighty. First,
it is extremely unadvisable that the clergy or the Church
laity of any parish should, by introducing changes in the
church, seem to try to steal a march on the parishioners in
general. The Bishop is the guardian of the rights of the
parishioners as well as of the parish priest, and it is his
duty to ascertain, before an alteration in a church is pro
posed, whether it is subject to any opposition, reasonable

FACULTIES 79
or unreasonable, factious or obstructive, which affects any
question of right or law, or even expediency. He has a
right to see that proper publicity is given to every proposal,
even of decided improvement. Secondly, however, the
judgment of the court is not subjected to the decision of
the vestry or to the obstruction of individual members.
The Chancellor of the diocese, who issues the faculty, is
the ecclesiastical judge, and it is for him to determine for
or against the application, as he deems it lawful, or ex
pedient, or desirable, whatever the character of the obstruc
tion may be. With these two points before us, I think
that we may see that, whilst duty and expediency require
publicity to be given to the proposal of improvements, the
authority and discretion of the Chancellor is sufficient to
counteract the risk that such publicity may invite unreason
able or factious criticism ; and there is safeguard also in
the very nature of costs.
As to the third objection, or I should rather say, com
petitive plan, the informal permission to be given by the
Bishop to the introduction of windows, and the like : I can
only say that, as I have no special qualification for judging
of such things, and no inclination to make myself respon
sible for things which I have no qualifications to judge of,
I see far more risk and trouble in the informal permissions
than I do in the payment of a guinea for an unopposed
faculty. At the same time, I recognise that there are small
things which, as being of the nature of repairs, can be done
without recourse to me, or if the advice of the Rural Dean
can be had, without reference even to the Archdeacon. If
any doubt arises, I am, for these small improvements,
ready to give due weight to the judgment of the Arch
deacons, whose advice I recommend the clergy and church
wardens to take before they apply for a faculty, or begin
to consider the possibility of dispensing with one.
But it is about the windows that I have the most mis
giving : the questions of taste, of art, of conformity with
the architecture and character of the Church, the religious
or historical character of the design, the question of
diminishing the light, of displacing other memorials, and

80 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
the like, are all matters which require more local memory
and discrimination than can be expected from a Bishop,
who has full occupation for his time, and who has, it may
be, strong views that will not always suit themselves to the
ideas of the benefactors who want to make the change.
Order, symmetry, security, and convenience can only be
attained by having these things done legally and in order.
church Defence.
I proceed now to make some few remarks on the subject
of Church Defence — a matter which is at all times of very
great importance, and which during the Icist few years has
been, as it will for the next few years certainly be, a very
constant occupation to those who watch and pray for their
country and its faith. For the Church — the Church of
England, that is, which is to us our point of contact and
means of incorporation into the great body of the Church
Catholic, is now, and is likely to be, an object of very
determined attack on many points and from many quarters.
And it is most expedient, it is most necessary, that the
defence should be conducted on such principles as, under
the divine protection, the experience of human history
shows most likely to be successful. Such a defence involves
at least five such principles, all five, however, being but
varied functions of the one great Evangelic principle, the
faith that overcometh the world.
The first is the certain realising of the cause which we
are engaged to defend ; the confident belief that it is the
right cause, and that it is one which is worth every effort
and every risk ; such a belief as involves the understanding
of the merits of the case, the strong and weak points of
the position, and which unites determined love of the
thing to be defended, and devotion which will not spare
sacrifice. The second is the persevering energy which turns this
belief into action, and shows the attacking force that we
are sincere in our defence, as well as careful and watchful
and energetic in our operations.
The third is that in all things our measures should be

CHURCH DEFENCE 81
constructive rather than combative; the strengthening of
our position rather than the nervous and sensitive policy
that puts itself forth to meet attack. We should build our
selves up and our cause, as well as sharpen our arms and
anoint our shields, and the constructive defence must be at
the back of all aggressive or repelling action.
The fourth is that our defence should be propqrtionate
and universal along the whole line, not calculated for the
hour or the day, but equable all round ; not giving all study
or all argument to one or two points which may be
attacked to-day, and safe to-morrow, but with the armour
on the right hand and on the left, knowing that the points
which seem safe to-day will be attacked very soon, all the
sooner, it may be, when it is noted that a disproportionate
amount of energy is bestowed on the point that is assailed
at present.
And, fifthly, the defence must be generous and honest ;
generous, in that we know that those who attack us may
be as confident of their cause as we are of ours, and that
we should struggle as with men who one day may be our
best friends ; honest, in that we know that no success of
defence or attack either can justify the use of means which
are not according to the laws of fair combat. In our
struggle, they who use the weapons of the world are ipso
facto defeated by their own arms. We trust in God to
keep us honest and true and strong, and in that trust we
wait and work for our victory.
The points of attack vary at different times ; at this
moment there seem to be three special points in which the
cry is raised against us as the Church of England Estab
lished and National. We are told that our ecclesiastical
character, our institutions, our doctrinal position, our
historical claims, are not what we have believed them to
be ; that our endowments ought to be taken from us, and
that our recognition as a constituent part of the theory
of the commonwealth must be withdrawn. In a word, we
are not a true Church ; we are not the Church of the
nation ; our property, our political position, are wrongs
to the liberties and consciences of those who do not think

82 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
with us, and practical measures of suppression and forfeit
ure are to be taken, on the foregone conclusion that we
are not, have ceased to be, or never were, what we, at all
events, have believed, and are considered to pretend that
we are.
Now, following the lines of defence which I have
sketched, our first lesson of training should be the thorough
realising of what we claim to be, the Church of God estab
lished in this nation ; a realising which involves a great
deal of doctrinal as well as historical intelligence, but yet
not more than may be expected from those who, with the
Bible, the Prayer Book, and their national history in their
hands, undertake the work. We should learn how to prove
that in doctrine and institutions, in creeds, government,
and divine service, we are really at one with the Church
of the apostles and the earliest presentment of the mystical
body of the Lord ; and then we should learn the history
which tells how that doctrine and institutions, creeds,
government, and divine service were brought to our fathers;
and how they have continued in unbroken succession, in
corporate identity since the first days, growing into the
national growth which grew by their aid, and under all the
changes and chances of the varying times retaining their
essential character unimpaired except by the inconsist
encies of individual administrators.
We have to realise next how the Church of Christ, thus
planted in and gathering under its branches the nations
of our fathers, acquired the property which is at this
moment the material objective of attack ; we might so
be able to prove that the source of our endowments was
either in private devotion of gifts of land, or in the more
general compliance with the ancient custom of the obliga
tion of tithe ; both of them secured in the long process
of ages by prescription, and enforced by all such ex
pedients of legislation as the possession of material rights
and properties can be defended by. And this means
a knowledge of national and Church history, such as is
really within the reach of all educated people, to be with
out which ought to be a mark of gross ignorance. If the

CHURCH DEFENCE 83
national history is to be taught, as it should be, in our
elementary schools, this knowledge must soon become
general ; if it is not to be so taught, it is a very bad augury
for the next age. No nation can continue to be great
that parts with the memory of its own growth ; and the
knowledge of the growth of England can never be acquired
without some acquaintance with the work and workings
of the Church.
This then ascertained,we are bound to take into considera
tion the attitude, the policy, the principles, and the methods
of those who assail us : to reckon with their sincerity, their
experience, their practical justification. We know that we
have to conduct a defence against the Church of Rome,
which denies our doctrinal system, denounces our historic
position as a usurpation, declares our succession of ministers
and transmission of gifts and ordinances to be an imposture.
We know that we have to reckon with a congeries of com
munities that have broken away from us on some point of
doctrine or government, or even on some ground of per
sonal administrative offence, have erected, on what may
have been a minute and reconcilable matter at first, a
fortification in which all their conservative as well as their
aggressive forces are embodied : great communities which,
having received from the Church of England the Scriptures
and the doctrinal training which they retain, but rejecting
her laws and order, seem to regard her retention of her
own institutions as in itself an aggression on the liberty
and equality of religious systems. And with these the
struggle of the Church is not merely against the errors, as
they seem to us, which led to the original separation, but
against the whole mass of impulse and momentum which
the experience of their history, as well as of our own, has
served to accumulate. But further, and this is perhaps at
this moment the pressing danger from the outside, we have
to reckon with a set of forces which are urging change
from non-religious as well as from the religious points of
view : forces some doctrinaire and empiric, some revolu
tionary, some antichristian, some social and political or
even personal, in which the ideal benefit of future society

84 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
is being sought by the practical ruin of all present existing
constitutions. I cannot characterise more in detail the
forces of which I speak: under different names and aspects
they are at work in all the countries of Europe, and in
forms far more extreme than here; the overthrow of
Churches, of Christianity itself, being only one feature of
the programme of universal change.
It is quite obvious that against such assailants the same
weapons are not equally effective, and the same champions
are not equally competent. The ablest defender against
Rome may be a very inadequate combatant against social
istic attacks. The struggle with the competing communities
or Churches of Nonconformists is a struggle on a diversity
of points which may require a diversity of studies and
a diversity of argumentative skill. These matters in their
detail must be left to those who make of them a special
study. But at the very foundation and basis of all
systems of defence must be that common realisation
of belief and duty of which I spoke. This it is in the
power of all to attempt, and there are ready at hand
means of attempting it successfully. There are abund
ance of good books ; there is a widespread and spread
ing scheme of lecturing, and otherwise educating those
who are interested in the work : in our own diocese,
in the schemes for higher education and for the Church
history lectures, we have a vehicle for bringing the advice
about reading, the books themselves, and the systematised
results of study, before all who are willing to learn. In the
lectures of the Church Defence Institution we have a
machinery of a more popular kind, capable of great adapta
tion, and most useful in dealing with those who have not
much time for reading. And there are many other in
fluences which may be brought into play without the risk
of encouraging a litigious or controversial spirit. All who
care for truth, whether with us or against us, may well take
heed to these things. There is much interest, even curious
and local interest, bound up with it all. The Church of
England is our own, the Church at all events of our fathers,
the guide of the way in which God has brought us into His

CHURCH DEFENCE 85
family. These things are worthy of our study and love
in other than controversial ways. And these avenues of
interest and affection lead to points of vantage and posts
of honour which are well worth guarding ; tell the towers
thereof, mark well her bulwarks; they are our charge to
keep for those that come after.
But there is a further consideration, the importance of
which cannot be overrated. No system of Church defence
can be effective that is not animated and supplemented by
action. No chest of title-deeds, however full, will maintain
an extinct family in possession of its estates, or the property
of a bankrupt owner out of the hands of his mortgagees.
No institution can live on the credit of its past achieve
ments ; and sometimes the inability to carry on or outdo
the past achievements is made a reasonable ground for
abolition. There are some things which cannot be taken
from the Church ; whatever happens she is the Church of
the national history, of the conversion, the constitution,
the Reformation, the Church of the translated Bible, the
Church of the Prayer Book. But how if she has the name
that she liveth and is dead? Such Churches there have
been, and are; that have forgotten their first love, that
have hardened themselves in a shell of self-complacency,
that have contented themselves with assertion : the temple
of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the
Lord are we. Now we are constantly being reminded or
reminding ourselves of this ; a Church may be in its history
a National Church, and in its life and operation have
ceased to be one. I do not use the vulgar argument that
a Church which retains the name of a national Church
must be the Church of the majority ; it need not be the
Church of the majority possibly in future days, as it
certainly in the days of the Conversion was only the
Church of a minority. But it must be an aggressive and
extending agent. If it is to continue to live, it must show
and exercise the functions of life. Church extension is
Church defence ; the Church of England must show that
she recognises the needs of the nation and the time, and
like all other things, all other institutions, she is on her

86 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
trial, judged, and likely to continue to be judged, by the
results of her working. This is true; a conclusion warranted
by the consideration of things spiritual as well as of things
temporal : the world will not continue to recognise a
Church in which the spirit of life is extinct : the Lord of
the Church Himself cannot save the Church which has lost
the spirit of power and love and soberness, the salt that
has lost its savour. And the need of this living energy is
not satisfied with sectarian activity : that is, highly as we
place the love of our Church and the vindication of its
claims among the motive forces of our corporate action,
that is not all : we try to spread the knowledge of the
truth in foreign lands, we try to maintain the standard of
religious education amongst our own people, we try to
raise the morality of our fellow-countrymen in purity and
temperance and truth and honesty, not simply and solely
because we want to secure the credit of doing so for the
Church to which we belong, but because we know it to be
our duty and privilege as Christians, and because the love of
our Lord for us constrains us to bring all whom we thus can
within the operation of the same constraint. We do believe
our own to be the most excellent way, and its system the
best system, but we are expected to work in that way and
in that system ; not merely for it as a way and a system,
but in it for the ends for which it was devised, as we think
by our Lord and His apostles, and tried by the experience
of eighteen centuries.
In saying this, you, I trust, will not think that I am
talking claptrap, especially after what I have said about
Church Defence in the last half-hour. It is indeed a very
searching consideration : practically it has a very definite
bearing upon our conduct as members of a diocese ; that is,
of an administrative member of the national Church. We
have each in our own parishes a field of work among our
fellow-parishioners, in our own neighbourhoods a task of
bearing the burdens of those whose burdens by personal
acquaintance we see to be too great for them. In our own
diocese we have a duty to help in the corporate work of
which a diocese is the exponent and the agent ; in our own

CLERICAL POVERTY 87
relation to our Church and nation, a duty by our per
formance of which not only our loyalty to our Church and
nation will be tested, but the very character, reputation,
utility, and efficiency of the Church and nation will be
judged by foreign opinion and in all coming time. The
great defence, so far as this side of the subject goes, has its
key in the rule of our Lord, " Let your light so shine before
men." The chief defence of nations is the loyalty and
innocency, the strength of the good cause realised by its
people in liberty and growth. The great defence, humanly
speaking, of the Church is the energy that her children put
forth in doing the duty that is incumbent on them as
a Church.
Clerical Poverty.
I must say a few words upon a very painful point ; I
mean that clerical poverty, which is rapidly becoming
a topic of commonplace interest. I wish to speak with
much sympathy, and, at the same time, without depressing
those with whom I would sympathise. There is no doubt
about the fact : it is true in this diocese, where there seems
to be an extraordinary number of very small livings, with
small populations, too widely scattered to be united in
larger parochial areas, and with very small incomes, which
there is no means, except direct benefactions, of increasing.
Upon these parishes the present depression of agriculture
has weighed very heavily : they were, as we thought, as
poor as they could be before, now the chronic pressure has
become acute. There are other livings, which, in the flourish
ing days of agriculture, were well endowed with glebe farms,
which have been reduced to almost abject poverty by
recent changes : these, from the impossibility of letting land
and the impossibility of farming it to profit, are still in great
distress. There are a good many livings, moreover, a con
siderable part of whose endowment consists of the large
and handsome parsonage house, which the income of the
benefice is not sufficient to keep up. And besides these
local drawbacks, there are the usual weak points so often
adduced, too early marriages, very large families, the diffi-

88 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
culties of education, the impossibility of adequate life
insurance, the hardships of dilapidations, the awkwardness
of adopting other means for eking . out an inadequate
income. I mention these points, rather to guard myself
against the charge of neglecting them, than from any hope
of offering such advice as may be helpful. And I venture
to speak of them with sympathy, although I know that I
shall be told, that as a Bishop with an assured and fixed
income I cannot really enter into the troubles of the poorer
clergy. I know that I shall be told so, and that it is not a
sufficient answer to say either that I have not always been
a Bishop with an assured income, or that Bishops with
assured incomes have, like their poorer brethren, calls upon
them which leave very little margin ; or that every Bishop
really holds his assured income as a trust for making the
best use of it, whilst there are many other purposes which
call upon him for support, and which in ordinary cases have
a demand upon him prior even to the duty of supplement
ing the needs of the clergy. Under present circumstances,
the conscience of the Bishop must acquit him if it can, and
I believe that it does ; anyhow, it knows more about the
matter than those who devote themselves to calculate what
appreciable benefit the Bishop's income would furnish if it
were redistributed among the 647 benefices of the three
counties. Let me just premise further, that I consider the
proper income for a clergyman, irrespective of the demands
that are likely to be made upon him by reason of the ex
tent or poverty of his parish — the professional income, I
mean — is such a one as will enable him to keep house, and
to bring up his children and educate them in the same way
that other middle-class people bring up and educate theirs —
in the way in which he, we will say, was himself educated;
and that being granted, I think that I may infer; that there
are very few livings that will enable a man to do more, a
very large number in which without private means he will
be very far from able to do as much.
Speaking now of the present distress, I would say, first,
that as it is not by any means confined to the clergy, but
extends to every portion of the great middle class, and, to

CLERICAL POVERTY 89
an extent little appreciated, to members of the higher
classes connected with the landed interest, there must be
some part of the burden to be lightened by the economies
which other people are obliged to practise. There can be
only a very few places where the clergyman's family is the
only one obliged to confess that it must reduce expenditure.
It is, I confess it, a painful thing to have to say, but it
must be said ; it is most painful when one knows that ex
penditure is reduced by the very force of poverty — there
need be no shame in confessing it. Economy must be
regarded as a necessity, waste as a sin. Economy con
stitutes by itself a claim on those, and they are many, who
could and would help those whom they see trying to make
the best of things. I do not think the caution is un
necessary : if in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred it is
all right, the hundredth case justifies me in saying it 
carelessness about debt is both a crime and a blunder.
Speaking further of the livings which are impoverished
by reason of the depression — for it is of such cases that I
am now thinking chiefly, and it is of little use to recom
mend additional economy to the small incomes, which from
the beginning enforce the habit upon their owners — speak
ing of the livings that have glebe and large houses, let me
say that next to economy I recomrnend patience. There is
a great temptation to sell glebe lands where they can be
sold, and to let parsonage-houses where they belong to im
poverished livings. As to the sale of glebe, for which recent
legislation has given great facilities, I must briefly say that,
as it stands to reason, where land will not let, it can only
be sold at the risk of great permanent loss, except in cases
so exceptional as scarcely to come into relation with the
present problem. Where land can be well sold for building
purposes, and where these building purposes are not merely
speculative — that is, where local improvements are on hand
and the requirements of increasing populations have to be
met — there it is wise and advantageous to sell ; but where
you are tempted to sell because the interest of the purchase
money at 2f per cent, would be greater than the rent at
present obtainable, it would be unwise and disadvantageous

90 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
to sell. Under any circumstances, it is very inexpedient to
do so without great caution exercised on the spot, as well
as through those departments in whose hands the law has
left the regulation of such transactions. I think, further,
that it is generally unwise in agricultural parishes for the
clergyman, by parting with agricultural property, to disjoin
his temporal interests from those of his parishioners more
than they are disjoined already ; such a separation of in
terests has been the one drawback, inevitable perhaps, but
still a drawback, on the economic work of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners, and more recently on that of the Com
missions for University Endowments.
As for the letting of glebe-houses — an expedient which
has been tried in several parishes with no great advantage,
I think — I would not be thought to wish to introduce a
novelty, or to close an opportunity of help. The incum
bent has, I believe, no restraint on his power of letting
during the three months which are legally subtracted from
his annual duty of residence. If he lets his house for a
longer period, it is competent for the Bishop to recall him
into his complete residence duty, and insist that he occupy
the house. But where the duties are completely discharged
by the incumbent, and he is resident in a smaller house,
and where, by letting the large house, his income can be
materially improved, I think that the Bishop may very
wisely permit such an arrangement as a temporary remedy.
In saying this, however, I must not be supposed to be
giving a general dispensation. I think that each case must
be still treated according to its merits; and that it is right
that the Bishop should be consulted, even when, as in the
case of three months' letting, the clergyman is acting
within his own power. I would urge that the greatest care
should be taken in ascertaining the character and circum
stances of the tenant ; mere birds of passage, even for a
hunting season, are not always desirable parishioners, and a
few weeks of bad influence in the parsonage-house may
destroy the purity, peace, and comfort of a parish for years.
And this consideration is further affected by the fact that
the clergyman's terminable interest in his house, and the

LIFE INSURANCE 91
formidable question of dilapidations, operate to his dis
advantage as a lessor. Of course I recommend no such
experiment, but there are cases in which, as a temporary
relief, it may be tried, and I am very sensible of the ex
hausting process of having to live in a house much larger
than one likes or wants. Anyhow, it is better than to try
to fill your houses, and make up your incomes, by pupils
whom you cannot manage, or the care of whom would
distract you from the proper work for which you are placed
where you are. After a long experience of clerical life in
various positions, I may be excused saying, that for one
case in which I have found a clergyman actually improving
his position and satisfactorily doing his duty with more gain
than loss to his parish by this expedient, I have found
twenty in which neither parson, pupil, nor parish got any
permanent benefit to counteract the risks, distractions, and
neglects that are inherent in attempts to reconcile two en
grossing and incompatible sets of engagements. As to this,
however, as I have no direct control, I shall not offer more
than advice, which advice I shall be quite glad to modify
in cases which are exceptional, either for the capacity of the
tutor or the smallness of the demands on his time, or the
other special circumstances of his case — a point which you
will kindly take for granted as applying to all that I have
had to say on a subject which is altogether painful.
Life Insurance.
In connexion with it further, I would speak of another
point which I would urge on the younger clergy direct, and
on the elders, that they may inculcate where they have the
opportunity — that is, the importance of insuring the life
early. In these days, when, notwithstanding the poverty
of the clerical profession generally, a young man begins life
at twenty-four with an income of ;£'i20 to ;£^I50 a year, it
is not too much to expect of him that he should insure his
life, say, for ;^50o in a good office. It is little more than
£io a year, and probably not more than a week's or ten
days' retrenchment of that six weeks' summer holiday which
seems to be the lot of curates, so much more fortunate in

92 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
that respect than Bishops, rectors, and vicars. Such a
payment simply helps as a nest-egg for future providence.
If in a few years the curate gets a small living, it is a
security for his dilapidations ; if he marries, it is the
beginning of a provision for those whom he must leave
behind him when he dies, and, insufficient as it no doubt
both is and appears in that function, it is a beginning, a
reminder, a little comfort to conscience and spur to exer
tion. In a few years the value of the policy is largely
increased, and possibly, as the duty becomes a part of the
habitual economy of a sensible man, he finds means of
increasing his reserve fund in this way. It is a great
mistake to delay insuring until you are in a position to
spare the annual premium without an effort or without
economy. To ninety-nine out of a hundred that time
never comes ; to the one to whom it comes the cost is
immensely greater, and sometimes, as years go on, it be
comes a real burden fettering the liberty of the incumbent
who knows that he ought to resign, and yet cannot do
it safely without forfeiting the insurance which he has
attempted on exhausting terms to secure.
And as I am saying so much on economies now, let me
urge on all, clergy and laity alike, who are interested in
this, that it is extremely desirable, by supporting the great
charitable societies, the Sons of the Clergy, the Poor Clergy
Relief, the Friend of the Clergy, and the county societies
in the several archdeaconries, to further the subsidiary
devices for helping the poorer members of our profession,
perhaps our own wives and children in the distance.
Our own Times.
I suppose that, if any of us were called on to describe
the character of our own times, we should say that they
are trying times, and times of transition — a time when all
things, men and institutions, are on their trial, and a time
when everything seems to be in the process of change.
There are two matters now conspicuously and promi
nently before the mind of the Church which make very
many of us anxious even to faithlessness, and impatient

HIGHER CRITICISM 93
even to the extent of uncharitableness. Of these I pro
pose to say a few words of caution and counsel. Perhaps
all that I can say will amount to no more than a counsel
of patience and tolerance. On the first of these, the
effect which may be produced by the assumed results of
what is called the higher criticism of the Holy Scriptures,
in their bearing on the details of dogmatic theology, and
consequently on the sense in which the Articles of the
Creed are to be explained, I will be very brief
Higher Criticism.
The Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament are now
going through a process of analytical criticism which has,
as we believe, had no parallel, for acuteness of investiga
tion, carefulness of method, and completeness of apparatus,
since the days in which they began to be regarded as a
code of inspired literature, and certainly not since the days
of our blessed Lord's life on earth ; at which period we
understand that to all intents and purposes the books
which we receive as the Canonical Old Testament Scrip
tures had taken their existing form. This process of
analytical criticism is producing, or assuming to produce,
results which are very startling, altering the commonly
accepted dates of some books, breaking up the accepted
unities of others, and unsettling, disproving, the accepted
authorship of others — results, one may say, in every respect
remarkable, seeing that they interfere seriously with the
literary and religious beliefs of 2,000 years, modify all
definite theories of prophecy and revelation, and demand
a readjustment, to say the least, of all existing religious
theories of inspiration.
And this unsettling of matters which have been for all
these years regarded as settled has the further result on
the acceptance of the New Testament Scriptures, and even
on the explanation of the language of our blessed Lord
as recorded there. For if the literary and historical truth
of the formation of the Old Testament code is irreconcil
able with the statements of the New Testament writers by
whom it is cited, it is difficult to acquit them of ignorance.

94 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
and, where they found arguments on the misunderstood
theories of authorship, of an ignorance so dangerous as to
bring their general credibility into question. And further
than this, when our Lord quotes a passage from the Old
Testament, and argues from it, on an acceptance of author
ship which is now assumed to be disproved. His own
credibility, and with it the divine and perfect knowledge
which in His one personality He must, as we have been
taught, have possessed, becomes a matter of doubt; and
therewith the doctrine of the Incarnation, the complete
union of perfect Godhead and perfect Manhood in the one
person of the Son. Such a result is a very terrible one,
very terrible indeed if we at all realise what it means : not
only that Christianity is not proved, or that its doctrine of
the Incarnation is false, but that a God who would let
mankind be cheated of the truth by their own best in
stincts, and, by permission of a falsehood, delude them
into a progress of development towards a virtue that has
no real sanction as virtue and a hope of immortality that
has no certain warrant, can scarcely be a God of love or
truth at all. I have stated matters, of course, as you will
understand, in the most extreme way.
We have often been told, when some startling novelty
has been broached, especially in relation to religious
theory, that opinion goes through three phases : first, the
new truth is said to be destructive of the old ; second, it
does not make any difference ; third, it is absolutely con
firmative of the truth that it seemed at first to contradict.
The formula is a cynical one, but there is this much of
truth in it — it is the novelty that alarms, it is the amount
of proved truth that confirms. So far we may accept it.
It will pretty certainly be the result now, if we will wait
and not let our impatience, by cutting knots that may and
will be untied, spoil the opportunity, and encumber the
faith of God with new difficulties and embittered relations.
At every step of the programme which I have stated,
there arise considerations of questions which we are not
qualified to answer peremptorily — we, ourselves, I mean,
are not qualified ; questions which neither alarmism on the

HIGHER CRITICISM 95
one hand nor terrorism on the other shall compel us to
answer before the time. Possibly no human investigation
ever can become competent for the task. Whichever end
we begin at, we find the same disqualification. There are
missing links, too, between every two sections of the
destructive argument.
We are not all of us so well read in patristic theology as
to be able to determime the exact bearing of the several
theories that prevailed in the days nearest the days of the
Son of Man, as to the relation between the divine know
ledge which He possessed as God, and the measure of it
which the human faculties which He possessed as the
perfect man, were capable of realising and using : but we
do know enough about patristic divinity to be aware that
the theories of the Fathers were not all the same. Do not
think that I am extenuating the importance of the matter ;
but do not pass judgment on a matter on which, as on all
questions of the relation of the finite to the infinite, and of
matter to spirit, you, we, the whole Church, the whole
world, may well stand in awe. Wait for the Lord.
Next, we are, none of us, in a condition to lay down
a hard-and-fast rule about inspiration. Our Church has
not done so: we are not called upon to do so. The
theories which have been acceptable to one age have
proved untenable by another. The analysis of the inspired
writings is now generally assumed to have proved that
there are matters on which the inspiring force did not
coerce the ignorance of the inspired writer into truths
which he was incapable of accepting or understanding,
as in matters of history and science. Here, too, we may
be thankful for what we have received : it is no proof of
faith to refuse to believe until all else is made clear.
Here, too, we may, as the Church always has done,
afford to wait. More light may, will, come in time ; but
the more is given to him who trims the light he has, and
does not put his candle under a bushel, because, as yet, it
does not lighten the far horizon.
Last, we are not many of us critics of Hebrew grammar
or style, and we scarcely do wisely when we allow our

96 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
anticipation of consequences to hinder us from a fair, full,
and free consideration of the labours of those who are.
Surely we have faith enough to wait — faith enough in the
work of the Son, faith in the experience of the Church,
faith in the moral working of the government of the world,
not to be impatient. We are not in the position of men
who pervert St. Thomas's petition of anxious love into an
expression of querulous doubt. And, although I would
not say a word against the free use of critical power in all
matters to which it can be applied, especially in those
of which I am myself ignorant, I do know that criticism,
like history, cannot afford rash conclusions ; that critics
differ even on points that seem to them essential ; that the
best critic allows always for the possibility of new light,
and that the very newness of the light that is now startling
us is in the mind of the wise an earnest, not of finality, but
of a further instalment of better and more light by-and-by.
We have seen the ebb and flow in other regions of
criticism, why should we give the critic a super-papal
function of appeal which he himself, if he is wise, does not
claim ?
Perhaps I have said more than enough : in your patience
you shall win your souls; things will be made clear to
those who stedfastly believe. They who seek another rock
because their hold on the faith which they have received
has been faint, loose, slippery — whether that rock be in the
hardness of self-conceit, or in the self-assumed infallibility
of a system that dispenses with the foundation of the
scripture — they shall have great trouble. We ask God's
mercy on those who seek some other rock than Him. We
wait for His loving-kindness in the midst of His temple.
Yes, we wait — but it is in the midst of His temple.
Ritualism. I am now going to approach the question which to
many minds appears to be the burning question of the
day, what is commonly called Ritualism. It is too late
now to protest against the use of the word, which, like
almost every other word that ends in " ism," except, per-

RITUALISM 97
haps, "schism," has its origin in misuse of etymological
forms, and leads to inveterate prejudice. By ritualism,
however, we all mean, now, the elaborate practice of rites
and ceremonies — rites and ceremonies of which some are
old and some new, some symbolical of doctrine and some
not symbolical ; some symbolical of doctrine on which all
Christians agree, others symbolical of doctrine on which
great schools and ancient churches are at variance — rites
and ceremonies which to one school amongst us seem
a necessary exposition of the doctrine with which they are
connected, and to others a hiding and obscuring of that
which without such accessories would be patent and clear
to all ; a necessary exposition, again, in one case of the
doctrines which their upholders sincerely believe to be true,
and which the opponents as sincerely believe to be a mis
interpretation of the truth ; a necessary exposition in the
other case of doctrines which, to the mind of one school
it would be dishonest to conceal, and to the mind of the
other school it is dishonest to maintain ; — rites and cere
monies, some of which, by long disuse, have lost their
claim to be imperative, and which, by an apparently sudden
revival, startle the ignorant and unprepared with an ap
pearance of innovation that is pardonably repulsive ; —
rites and ceremonies which have historically, legally, morally,
and theologically, so varied and subtle and penetrating
influences, as altogether in popular acceptation seem to
outweigh their original and essential significance.
It would be perfectly useless if I were to say now that
I am going to take an impartial and unprejudiced view of
these bearings of the Ritual question — perfectly useless,
first, because no one would believe it; the violence of
party spirit having long ago risen to such a pitch as to
allow no impartiality to any judgment that is not on its
own side. And secondly, because I know how uncon
sciously every man's judgment in matters in which by
constitution, education, or experience, he is deeply in
terested, is influenced by what we can call by no other
name than prejudice. All that I can say is, that I will
try, whilst treating of the several sides of the subject which

98 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
I have indicated, to state matters of fact as matters of fact,
and matters of opinion as inoffensively as I can state them.
(a) Ritual Changes.
The rites and ceremonies around which the contest
circles, and the proper performance of which is the subject-
matter of dispute, ar^ the rights and ceremonies of the
Book of Common Prayer, and especially that portion of
it concerned with the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
The Book of Common Prayer is the legal and formal
expression of the mind of the English Church and nation,
as to the celebration of the ordinances of the Gospel in
public worship. It was drawn up at a period at which the
controversies on the character of the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper were particularly acute, and under a suc
cession of influences which varied and were modified by
other forces, but which were, throughout the period of
consolidation, affected by this as a matter of crucial im
portance. We are able to trace in the successive editions
of the Prayer Book the working of these influences ; and
the result may be briefly summed up.
Until the close of the reign of Henry VIII. the altera
tions made in the ancient service of the Church were small,
had little reference to doctrine at all, except so far as the
papal supremacy can be regarded as a matter of doctrine,
and were chiefly important as indicating the movements
towards change, which, whether owing to what was going
on upon the Continent in the way of Reformation, or
owing to the liberation of forces in England consequent
on the breach with the Papacy, were certain to come,
although it was not yet clear what line the changes would
take. The first measures of the next reign were distinctly of
a mediating character. The Reform party, political and
theological, was strong in the Court of the child-king, but
the possibility of a combined administration of the old
and new parties was not yet extinguished. The excesses
of the extravagant and often outrageous partisans of
Reform were restricted by legislation ; but the constructive

RITUAL CHANGES 99
measures of the statesmanlike leaders were determinately
directed towards the abolition of the ancient abuses. The
Communion Order of 1 548 was a typical act of policy :
with one hand it continued the old Ritual of the Mass,
with the other it introduced the new Ritual of Communion
in both kinds. It marks the nearest point of agreement
-—almost, one might say, of equilibrium — between the new
and the old schools in the Church.
A year later came the first Prayer Book of Edward VI.,
which marks a very strong movement of the balance
towards Reform. The new book is made up by a re
arrangement of old materials, and by the introduction
of much from new sources, harmonising well with the old
material that was retained ; the variations of service being,
moreover, not so distinctly those that met the eye, as those
which were intended to correct and adjust the doctrinal
position of the worshipper. Marly ceremonies that lay
outside the contents of the Prayer Book were practically
abolished or distinctly forbidden. The essential portions
of divine service were presented in more simple guise ;
all incitements to or insinuations of idolatry were elimin
ated ; but in its simple guise the new service was not so
very unlike the old.
If the tendency to change could have been stayed there,
a great deal of later history would have remained un
written : but the elements at work were too strong, and
the helm was not held in a steady hand. The old party
mistrusted the change as a step in the direction of further
change ; the new party did not profess to consider it as
final. Immediately on the realisation of this, a crisis set
in. The conservative prelates, after some hesitation, re
fused to accept the changes, and were removed from their
sees; as soon as that was done, a further reform was
begun, and just at the close of the reign the second Prayer
Book was published, and bore witness to the fact that the
spirit of innovation had won a certain amount of victory.
The second Prayer Book, looked at so far as its material
and doctrinal contents are concerned, does not differ widely
from the first ; the prayers and offices are to some extent

100 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
rearranged and readjusted ; but the substance remains.
The great changes are to be found in the outward and
visible presentment of the services, about which still, not
withstanding the introduction of new influences, an amount
of compromise or hesitation seems to linger. Was it quite
intended to be final ? This question cannot and need not
be decisively concluded. It is possible that Cranmer and
some of the more experienced scholars who took part in
the work were satisfied with it, and might, if they had
lived, have been inclined to resist further concessions to
the school which was anxious to bring the English rite
into direct agreement with the views of the continental
Reformers ; it is quite certain, from the conduct of the
more advanced party under Elizabeth, that there was no
finality in their minds on the matter. But it is to be
remembered that the Calvinistic influence in England and
Scotland was not yet so strong as within a very few years
it became, and that it is quite possible, if Mary's reign had
not intervened, that the changes might have gone much
further. The period of persecution in which Cranmer and
Ridley perished put an end to the possibility of a per
manent compromise which would include under one rite
the papal and protesting parties ; and, at the accession of
Elizabeth, the opportunity was given for consolidating and
organising, on the principle of a National Church system,
what had been secured by the action and reaction of the
three preceding reigns.
The great historic importance of the third Prayer Book
— that is, the one introduced by the Act of Uniformity of
Queen Elizabeth, which to almost all intents and purposes
is that which we now use — is that it was a distinct enuncia
tion that the tide of innovation should proceed no further.
The changes introduced into it from the second Prayer
Book are very few, but, few as they are, they indicate a
return to, rather than a further departure from, the first
Prayer Book.
I do not propose to diverge now into any discussion
upon them, but I may observe that from our knowledge of
the views held by the Queen and her ablest counsellors, we

RITUAL CHANGES 101
may not unreasonably speculate on a chance that, if the
question of revision had come into the arena of practical
politics, the tendency of such changes as they would have
made would have been towards the earlier form of the book.
That no such further revision was practically taken in hand
was probably the result of the bitter attacks on the book
as it now stood, which were made by the Puritan party
inside the Church and outside of it. The intransigency of
the one party forced the conservatism of the other into an
attitude of inflexible resistance. Neither at the accession
of James I. nor at the restoration of Charles II. were any
concessions made to the Puritan party, and such modifica
tions and sufferances as did affect the rites of the Church
were, so far as they were more than matters of conveni
ence, a strengthening of that order which the Edwardian
Reformers had left behind them and the Elizabethan
statesmen had accepted as a permanent religious basis — as
in fact what we have now come to call the Reformation
settlement. Now it must not be forgotten that, besides the Puritan
party outside the Church of England, a party which began
to work in and out of Parliament as early as the reign of
Elizabeth, there was a Puritan party within it which
acepted the Prayer Book as a modus vivendi rather than as
a symbolic book or confession of faith or guide of practice ;
and that, on the other side, besides the inflexible party of
conformity, there were scholars and divines who were
strongly drawn to the earlier usages in matters of ritual,
although, in matters of doctrine, they agreed more than we
should have thought likely with the Calvinistic and other
Reformed Churches. So that through the whole period of
which I have been speaking there was, together with a
solid and firm front of opposition to Roman usurpations
and Roman definitions, a school or set of divines and lay
men who were inclined to develop such parts of the Church
service as retained any flexibility in the direction of greater
solemnity ; and another school or set inclined to make the
inevitable line of the Act of Uniformity the maximum
of their ritual observance. Unquestionably these parties

102 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
diverged further from one another as time went on, as
political events increased or diminished the chances of
Roman influence, and as the study of the Holy Scriptures
and Church history received more direct and devout atten
tion on both sides. So matters stood towards the close of
the seventeenth century ; events gradually complicating
on one hand and simplifying on the other. The expulsion
of the Nonconformist clergy in 1662, the intrigues of the
politicians under the later Stewarts, the ecclesiastical strifes
of the reigns of Anne and George I., altered the spiritual
temperature of the Church, and changed the old matters
of controversy for new ones. Whatever great things were
to be done under the Hanoverian reigns were to be done
in the resistance to Deism, and in the revival of the
religious life of the people. These points are not relevant
to my present purpose. As to ritual history, from the
close of the Nonjurors' separation to the revival of fifty
years ago, there is a blank. The services of the Church,
where they were celebrated with any more elaboration than
the simple decency which interpreted all order by common
custom, were marked with parade of a secular character,
and a certain development of sacred music, which was a
common feature in all foreign communities. Catholic and
Protestant, at the time, although not perhaps in Scotland
or among the Nonconformists of our own nation.
(i) Rhual History.
Now it is well within the memory of a very large number
amongst us, how the movement began which altered all
this ; which threw off the lethargy under which Church
life had been vegetating or hybernating for a time ; which
began the restoration of our Church fabrics, restored the
study of Church history, vindicated the claim of the Church
to its educational and missionary functions ; and, kindling
the fire of enthusiasm within the limits of the Church of
England and without, helped to exhibit religious life in
juxtaposition with the stimulated and developed social
and political life of the period, as one of the great factors
of character and history.

RITUAL HISTORY 103
One of the first matters which marked the revival was
the attempt to realise the whole bearings of the liturgy of
the Church ; and, as such an attempt was a most overt
and distinct assertion of revival, it was met with the sus
picion that always welcomes any policy that disturbs
popular complacency. It came at a time when Church
reform was understood to mean the reduction or alienation
of revenue on one side, and the economy of resources and
correction of administrative abuses on the other: and it
came from a quarter which could no more acquiesce with
the former than it could content itself with the measures
of the latter. We can remember the struggles which at
tended the attempt to reintroduce the surplice into the
pulpit, and how the simplest efforts to improve the arrange
ments of divine service were attacked as being insiduously
intended to lead the congregations to the Church of Rome.
The revival of rubrical observance, which I distinctly affirm
had, at that time, no relation or reference, by connexion
or intention, with Romanism, was designated as an overt
attack on spiritual religion ; any idea of making a change
in custom so as to bring the service into obedience to the
rubrics, was scouted as an innovation, and men were per
secuted within the last forty years for doing things which
an honest interpretation of simple words has now vindicated
as legal, and made customary also.
Things have gone on moving. When once the subject
was started, and its possible importance seen, its real value
as a religious influence, and its incidental significance as
an implement to be used in controversies which had revived
as well as other elements of life, these things became a
matter of careful study, of analysis, and of historical in
vestigation ; and, as our communications with the Continent
were developed, a point of curious personal investigation to
everyone who could go out and see for himself what the
services in the French, German, and Italian churches were
like. And as a consequence of this, men began to interpret
the rubrics of our Prayer Book with reference not only to
the stages of definition which I have characterised, but,
as their studies drew them, by the illustrations to be drawn

104 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
from the pre-Reformation Service Books, and, as their
personal experience of foreign travel drew them, by the
devotional-exercises and other phenomena of foreign usage.
And this result was further complicated by the incessant
fire of criticism, more or less ignorant, to which every
marked clergyman or church was subjected. Irritation
produced exaggeration ; the sense of undeserved reproach,
working on minds already unsettled in the old allegiance to
the letter of the formularies, stimulated men to extrava
gances which were and are reactionary in the worst sense.
We have thus in simple terms two remote extremes and
a good many intermediate variations. An extreme ritual
Puritanism, an extreme of ritual extravagance : ritual
Puritanism and ritual extravagance, of which it would
be true to say that, consciously or unconsciously, they
are alike disloyal. Between them are the stages which
each extreme denounces as only extremes can denounce,
but which themselves are separated by the same old line
of separation which divided parties in the seventeenth cen
tury — the party which would, if it could loyally do so, go
further in the direction of change, and the party which
would content itself with upholding, and developing as far
as it loyally can, the ceremonial observances of the Prayer
Book in the direction of ancient usage. Into the minutise
of the differences I do not think it at all necessary, and it
is certainly not expedient, for me to go. They are obvious
to most men. Let it suffice to say that they are, very few
of them, new points of divergence, and all to be easily
referred to the varying action or permission of action which
is covered by the latitude of ritual comprehension as sym
bolised in the liturgies of 1559 and 1662. Whatever seems
to be outside of that latitude, in either direction, I do not
want to characterise further; and it is not necessary for
my present purpose to determine minutely the limits either
way. That determination is the work of law and judica
ture : and the historical outline which I have attempted
has led us up to the consideration, or rather the con
templation—for I do not propose any analytical treatment
of it — of that as our next point.

CHURCH COURTS 105
Church Courts.
It would be a hopeless task to attempt, within the limits
of a Visitation charge, to compress even into faint outline
the details of history, theory, opinion, and experience on
the matter of Church courts, qualified, competent, and
capable of deciding on points of doctrine or ritual in such
a way as would satisfy men who are working on diametrically
contrary principles. What we want really is a supreme
court, so well informed, so rigorously impartial, so equitably
open to the consideration of practical questions, so careful
in the elaboration of decisions, and so properly qualified to
adjudicate causes on which the interests of human souls
are believed to turn, that the loyal will obey its decisions
with complete acquiescence, and the disloyal neither seek
nor find ways of defying or evading them. The law of
the Church of England is a law binding on the heart,
mind, and conscience of the clergy, and they have a right
to demand that the administration of the law shall be in
the hands of men in whom, for such qualifications as I
have enumerated, they are justified in having confidence.
That demand being fulfilled in conscience as well as in
justice, they are bound to obey the decisions of the courts,
or to put themselves into such a position that they shall
cease to be affected by them : that, I suppose, all will
admit. But I must go further, and say that, even if the
courts were not such as they could have perfect confidence
in, still, so long as they are the courts established by the
law of the land which maintains the clergy in possession
of their property and rights, the alternative remains, obedi
ence or punishment. This may strike you as a harsh pro
nouncement under present circumstances, but it is only
a reduction to its lowest terms of the ultima ratio in all
litigation. Practically it is not accepted by all, and that for certain
reasons which can only be briefly summarised. The
supreme tribunal of appeal is not, according to the mind of
many, so constituted as to possess the competency and
capacity that is desired ; its decisions are not consistent
with one another, or with the historical and spiritual

106 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
conditions on which a tribunal of appeal should decide;
it has been used to close questions which ought, by reason
of the latitude of the Reformation settlement, to have been
left open ; it has not measured out justice equally to the
two extreme contending parties ; and, where it has decided
in favour of the party which has been attacked, its judg
ments have been so worded as to show suspicion and
prejudice against those who, in their own idea, were con
tending for what they believed to be the law and legally
justified. I do not allege these points as at all conclusive,
but simply because I think that they explain the attitude
of discontent which would appear otherwise unreasonable.
The decisions of the Judicial Committee appear to the
sufferers to be wrong, and they justify their disregard to
them by questioning the competency of the court which
gives them. Their demurrers are of unequal value, and
some of them are raised on a theory that has no warrant.
No tribunal, of appeal or other, can adjudicate on questions
that are not brought before it ; and the Judicial Committee
has never been asked to deal out impartial justice to the
anti-ritual side. It is of the very nature of law to close
questions which, on other considerations, might be left
open. It is for history or for theology to determine the
bearing of events and beliefs ; and, if there is no con
clusion attainable, to leave them until something new
arises to interpret them further : but law has to determine
what is to be done. Truth — truth in possession or in
expectation — is the object of historical inquiry ; decision,
something to be done, is the object of legal proceedings.
And if on such considerations it does seem unreasonable
sometimes that legal decisions, based on imperfect infor
mation, should be incapable of review or reversal, such
unreasonableness must be regarded as one of the trials
of human patience, one of the conditions for which future
legislation may supply, not indeed redress of the past, but
opportunities for better things by-and-by.
If, with these considerations before us, we face the pre
sent difficulty, it is of no use to shut our eyes to the
fact that, with two parties acting on different principles.

MISREPRESENTATIONS 107
and the one being determinately set on driving the other
to extremities, the situation is an extremely dangerous
one. And it is not the less dangerous because there are two
ways of looking at it, when the result of both ways of
looking at it is the same. It makes no difference, if a
legal decision means the condemnation and forfeiture of
the wrong party, whether the action is raised for the
vindication of the rights of the prosecutor or for the
correction of the soul of the defendant. The result is the
same, and a series of such results in a uniform direction
can have only one issue. That issue no rearrangement of
tribunals, nothing short of legislative reform, if even legis
lative reform were possible or could do it, would avert.
Misrepresentations. I will not waste your time with further speculation on
this ; but there are still the moral and the religious side of
the present disputes to be noted, and very briefly — possibly
the same few words may do for both. Well, the moral
aspect of the dispute has its importance thus : no sanctity
of aim, no determination to vindicate even the highest
law, justifies the use of means which are otherwise un
justifiable. Appeals to popular prejudice ; the use of
misrepresentation ; the propagation of controversial antago
nism among the ignorant and ill-informed ; evil-speaking,
lying, and slandering, are unpardonable, whether in the
mouth of a controversial divine, or in the columns of a
religious newspaper, or in the little stinging paragraphs of
a society journal. They would be unpardonable in the
mouth of an apostle or an archangel. To accuse a man of
disloyalty on speculative grounds, to accuse a body of men
of conspiracy on speculative grounds, to accuse a man of
dishonesty because he takes a different view of matters
of doctrine or interpretation, is a self-condemnatory method
of controversy. And those who teach the ignorant and
prejudiced to misuse the vocabulary of controversy are
not less sinning against their own souls. I am sick of
hearing about sacerdotalism and mediaevalism from men

108 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
who scarcely know how to spell the words, and who have
been taught to misuse them by the very prejudice that
construes every unintelligible accusation as a condemna
tion. I do not care if one party is as bad as the other, to
modify my words of censure. These evil words and cruel
insinuations harm most those who use them ; but they
wound the whole body of Christ. They are sins against
that charity without which the profoundest and most per
fect orthodoxy is no more good than sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal. They are the weapons of the enemy
of Christ, which they who allow themselves to use are ipso
facto overcome of them. Morally looked at, they call out,
stimulate, and exasperate the worst feelings of human
nature; religiously looked at, they are most thoroughly
opposed to the law and example and express teaching of
the Saviour : ye know not what spirit ye are of, if ye use
them, any of you. And they are the very crowning of the
sin of schism, the forcible rending of the mystical body of
the Lord. I tried to speak dispassionately of the material
points of dispute about these matters : here there is no
need to speak dispassionately ; there is no question for
doubt ; burning indignation is not out of place.
And I should not except from this condemnation other
exaggerated estimates, or expressions in exaggerated
language, of the condition of the Church of England at
this time ; to speak of anarchy and lawlessness is, with
reference to nine hundred and ninety-nine of every
thousand of our parishes, a falsehood ; and with respect
to the one that is disordered, it is an exaggeration out
of all proportion to the truth. I recognise the fact that
there is a wayward wrong-headedness, a disobedience to
a law that is unacceptable to the self-will of parties ; but
lawlessness means something far beyond that, and anarchy
something remoter still. I recognise the sin of disobedi
ence and wilfulness, as I recognise the sin of malignity
and persecution ; from both may He who holds the
balance of judgment deliver us in His good time, and that
soon.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 109
Religious Education.
Although there are very many practical and debateable
questions before the mind of the Church of England at
this moment, there is not one, I think, that in either imme
diate urgency or permanent importance comes near that
of popular education. Hopeless as it would seem to say
anything new upon it, and grievously as it has become
involved in the noise and turmoil of political complica
tions, it is a subject which will not let itself be shelved
as either worn out or inextricable. We have no right to be
silent about it or careless about it ; it is the question of
life or death. It is pre-eminently one that calls for the
exercise of moderation in judgment, and toleration of
opposing opinions. It is one in which none of the really
interested among the contending parties can hope for a
complete victory, and it is one on which, if national im
patience should sweep away all our contentions by one
imperative mandate, all those who are really interested
among the contending parties will be alike, if not equally,
losers. And it is not a new question : in different phases
it has been before thoughtful minds for nearly a century ;
for it was one of the very first matters upon which the
awakened forces of religion and philanthropy, which were
roused to energy by the shock of the great French Revolu
tion, found material and interest to work. It means to us
the future of our children, of our Church, of our country,
of the world, in fact, in which our children, our Church, and
our country are to have their work and mission. It means
to us, further, the fulfilment of a duty which one age
owes as a sponsor before God and in the view of history
for the next age, a duty which, whether contemplated in
its relation to God the Father, Son, and Spirit, or looked
at in its bearing on the development of human progress,
carries with it desperate condemnation to those who
neglect it or content themselves in doing it any way less
good than the best. It is a growing work, a growing
duty, a growing responsibility.
It is worth while, at the cost of some little repetition
of well-known facts, to look into the history of the subject.

110 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
We may possibly trace some permanent elements of diffi
culty, or we may regard the whole subject and its most
distinctive features especially as the unexpected and un-
prepared-for result of events that at first sight seem to
have little connexion with it. Either way there are some
curious, many important, questions to be asked. England
has been a Christian country for nearly 1,300 years;
England has been enlightened with the agency of the
printing-press for four centuries ; England has rid herself
of the blight of mediaeval ignorance, as it is commonly
called, for at least three centuries. Each generation has
had something to teach the next : what itself learned from
those that went before, and what by its own experience
it was able to add to the lesson of tradition. There always
were some schools, there always was some religious teach
ing, some elementary teaching, or we should not have
been as we are, or as our grandfathers were when the new
movements for education began at the beginning of the
century. That means that there never was an age in which
the preciousness of education was lost sight of, although
there were ages in which the best means to the best end
were neglected, and in which men were content to let
the machinery for general transmission of what there was
to learn, fall far behind the progress that was being made
in other matters, such as wealth, mechanical skill, and
political ambitions. And all through, religious teaching
has formed a part of education, as if on the principle that,
unless education was worked as a religious duty, there
would be no sufficient motive power, either in general
philanthropy or in political economy, strong enough to
keep the mind of the age conscious of its duty to its
successor. The conservative mind recognised education
as a conserving element for that which it wished to con
serve ; the progressive mind recognised education as an
indispensable part of the intelligence that was to direct
and develop progress. Religion was an element in both
ideas, although even religion failed to supply an adequate
stimulus in lazy or merely speculative times. It was left
for our own age to set to work vigorously, universally, and

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 111
compulsorily in the performance of the great duty ; and
it is for our own age now to solve the problem of how
religion, amid the turmoil and contradictions of schools,
sects, theories, experiences, indolences, and zeals, is to
continue to be taught ; or if not, on what terms it is to
be eliminated. My own words suggest a question prelimi
nary to any examination of the history. Can religion
be taught at all ? There are people who say that it cannot,
that it is the expression of spiritual feeling, which is value
less and useless unless it be entirely spontaneous ; that
there are some in whom such spiritual feeling shows
itself when they are children, and others in whom only the
experience of life can evoke it, whilst for the great majority
of men it either dies in the germ or never exists at all ;
and thus that children had better not be committed to
beliefs that they cannot understand, or trained in methods,
formularies, and ceremonies that fetter the freedom with
which their spiritual nature should develop. The whole
theory is superficial, but it has the popular element of
furnishing an easy way out of a difficulty. We can answer
it by very simple analogies. We have all heard of the man
who would not venture into the water until he had learned
to swim ; the alphabet as well as the catechism must be
learned by those who are quite unable to understand it ; all
elementary teaching is a process from the condition of
ignorance to the condition of knowledge, through media
which are unintelligible at the beginning to be intelligible
at the end. Music has to be learned through the mechan
ism of a training which is absolutely unintelligible to the
child who goes through it. Religious feeling is not a
matter of teaching, but the child may well be taught the
lessons which, if any can, will evoke it, and must be taught
the truths round which the religious feeling when it is
aroused may circle. It is a very cruel thing to leave a
child without the guidance that its very first spiritual
instincts demand in their search for that God who has
made it for Himself. If the child cannot be taught faith,
hope, and charity, it can be taught the facts which, when
tlie time comes, it can in faith embrace, and in hope work

112 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
for, and the rules of love which are to be, when it has
learned to love Christ, the habits and instincts of a renewed
nature. But our notion of religious education is not merely an
education in religion, but an education in all things that
can be learned, given in a religious spirit, and in such a
way as to teach the religious side and bearing of all human
actions and studies. But I must go to the other side of the
subject now.
It is scarcely necessary to ihquire how people were
educated in those early days in which book knowledge was
a professional acquisition ; when ordinary people counted
on their fingers, and no village contained a person who
could read or write except the clergyman and the steward
of the manor. Prayers and Bible lessons were learned by
oral teaching in church ; and whatever of other elemei^tary
teaching was acquired, it was acquired by experience or
by effort, carrying the learner away from his simple sur
roundings, to schools established in towns or monasteries,
the teaching of which was still more or less professional.
With the invention of printing the extension of schools
began, but they were mainly grammar-schools, first-step
schools in a set of grades that led up to scholarship, not
such as furnished an indispensable preparation for the
everyday life of ordinary citizens. And this went on as
the rule after the Reformation, although from that time
we do, I think, trace a growing divergence — as, for instance,
in the cases in which cathedral statutes provide for the
choristers a simpler and less literary education than is
offered to the King's scholars on the new foundations.
The seventeenth century saw the formation of charity
schools on country estates and in large towns ; all, how
ever, as I think, framed on a principle of benefiting the
particular estate or locality, inspired by local feeling or
definite religious duty, not forming a part of any general
scheme or even idea of a scheme for general advancement.
The growth of this idea would, I think, be properly referred
to the knot of good men who, after the Revolution and in
the reign of Queen Anne, set to work to found the great

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 113
religious societies. Their work in this direction, sup
plemented by the adaptation of charity schools to the
humbler but more general purpose of elementary teaching,
was all distinctly religious ; it was on the lines of the
Church's teaching; and the attempts made by the Non
conformists in the same way, attempts which had no
sectarian element, I believe, in them, but which were
sincere and generous, and always to be mentioned with
respect, were alike works of religion and charity.
In the year 1811 the National Society was founded; the
British and Foreign School Society was founded a few years
earlier. The former was a distinctly Church Society, the
latter a mixed one of Churchmen and Nonconformists.
Both began their work with the idea of framing a general
system; both worked zealously; but in a short time the
National Society concentrated the working power of
Churchmen, and became the representative of the Church
of England in the matter of education. For more than
twenty years the burden was borne without help from the
State; each year an increasing number of schools and
children were brought in, and in 1834, three years after the
Reform Act was passed, the subject was taken in hand by
the House of Commons. For five years, 1834 to 1839, a
grant of ;;^20,000 was made annually and divided between
the two Societies. In 1839, under Lord Melbourne's ad
ministration, a general scheme of education was brought
forward by the Government ; the administration of the
annual grant was placed in the hands of an Educational
Committee of the Privy Council, and a programme of
secular instruction, in which religious teaching had no de
finite place, was proposed. This passed the Commons by
a small majority, but in the House of Lords, led by Arch
bishop Howley, was met with a series of resolutions drawn
up by the Bishops and embodied in an address to the
Crown. The address was presented in solemn form by the
peers at Buckingham Palace. The answer given was un
favourable ; but the Government scheme was so modified
as to allow of its acceptance by the clergy, and from that
date the position of the Church as the educator of the

114 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
people was fairly vindicated. The grants increased, and
the system of inspection was developed from year to year
for thirty years with unbroken success. Not, however,
without many struggles, the history of which, familiar as it
must have been to the elders amongst us for a long time,
has in the view of later evolutions become very ancient. I
do not wish to refer to the political complications which
underlay the struggles, nor to the ecclesiastical under
currents which more or less efficaciously helped to deter
mine special crises. Nor need I attempt to point out
how the controversies which centred in the Conscience
Clause (as it was called) changed their character and aspect.
The period may be styled the period of the sole energy of
Voluntary and Denominational Schools, assisted and con
trolled on general principles of efficient administration by
the Educational Committee, carefully inspected and re
ceiving annually greater grants. The religious inspection
of the schools of the Church, the creation of training
schools and colleges for Church schoolmasters and school
mistresses, the incorporation of the educational into the
diocesan work, went on through these years of probation.
And the results were great in their way. But they did not
as results meet the demand, and public opinion was not
patient enough to wait. Accordingly, in 1870, the existing
system of rate-aided schools and school-boards was, after
much discussion, created to supplement and work in with
the existing denominational and voluntary system. We all
know that under this combination a much larger number of
children have been brought in to be educated than could
have been by the more gradual extension of the voluntary
system, and that owing to the great advantage gained by
the rate-aided schools over those which were dependent on
voluntary subscriptions, a sort of rivalry has been kept up,
about which one may doubt whether the result will be the
survival of the fittest. And in this rivalry the religious
element has its place, because owing to the unfortunate
action and interpretation of the Cowper-Temple Clause in
the Education Act, it is generally held that distinctive
religious formularies are not to be used in rate-aided

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 115
schools. Those religious bodies thus that have distinctive
religious formularies, and the Church of England especially,
are put to the very painful alternative — either the use of the
formularies must be suspended or the benefit of the rate aid
must be renounced. And the difficulty has been enhanced
by several causes — as, for instance, by the express wishes of
political theorists to bring the whole educational work into
symmetry on the non-religious or undenominational prin
ciple ; the hostility of Nonconformist bodies, which feel
themselves competent to undertake the religious teaching of
their children in the Sunday schools without distinctive
teaching in the board schools, and the lukewarmness of
Churchmen in supporting the voluntary system where the
board-school system stands in anything like competition
with it. Nor is this all : for under successive modifications of
the code under which the Government inspection is worked
and the grants are administered, there has been a limitation
of the direct religious teaching in Church schools them
selves; religious instruction has been in danger of being
edged out by the teaching of subjects which have more
direct effect on the determination of the amount of the
grant. There is then at present, together with a very en
couraging record of the number, excellence, and growth of
Church schools, a very discouraging counter-influence in the
difficulty of obtaining pecuniary support, of the hazardous
emulation with the rate-aided system, of the depressing
effect of agricultural poverty in country parishes, and of the
political or quasi-political doctrinairism which is felt to be
at work under the whole complication. And there is
further the newer element of the idea of free, or, as it is
foreshadowed in ministerial language, "Assisted Education."
Let us look at these matters from the point of practical
questioning. What must be the result of the elimination
of religious instruction from elementary schools ? Is the
tendency of the time towards the extinction of denomina
tional schools, and universal adoption of a rate-aided
system ? Can religious instruction be satisfactorily given
without formularies ? or can religion be adequately taught
in unsectarian schools ? Can morality be taught without

116 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
religious sanctions or appeal to religious constitution in
mind, soul, and spirit ? Our answer must be very short if
I am to find time for a word on Assisted Education.
First, then, my belief is that unless there is a much
more concentrated and continued effort to sustain the
voluntary system, there is imminent risk of its being
swamped by the rate-aided system. There is a decided
difference between driving your own carriage and availing
yourself of the railway train, and the tendency is towards
the universal prevalence of the latter. It is very likely
that our policy is rather to improve the railway service
than to cling obstinately to the use of our own equipage.
It should be possible for a country like ours, a Christian, a
denominational country, to improve its educational system
into a truly national, not merely a sectarian or unsectarian
system. If that is not done, if the voluntary schools are
to be swamped by the board schools, what is to become
of the religious teaching, and what are the moral conse
quences ?
The prohibition of distinctive formularies, of Church
teaching, means practically the inculcation of the idea that
what the Church teaches her children as necessary to
salvation is not necessary to salvation ; it means the pro
scription of the doctrinal as well as the formal teaching of
the Gospel. Non-inclusion is prohibition, and prohibition
is practically contradiction. The exclusion of conformity
is the inculcation of nonconformity. I need not appeal to
recent events that are in the memory of us all as illustra
ting this.
The attempts, I believe next, to inculcate moral lessons
without religious sanctions or appeals to motives and
feelings which are distinctly religious, can only result in
the inculcation of economic morals — that is, the cultivation
of the virtues that lead to social success, good character,
and the maintenance of credit; they cannot reach the
heart or conscience, or help the training in faith, hope,
and charity, or in the renunciation of those sins which do
not bring with them disgraceful conventional consequences.
I am inclined to believe that, so far as we have now got,

ASSISTED EDUCATION 117
the results of non-religious teaching have been saved from
being thus non-religious by the fact that the great body of
teachers has been religiously educated, and that in the great
majority of homes religion is an influence greater than the
outward profession of it would indicate : but that as time
proceeds, unless a corrective be discovered and applied, the
mischief must extend, and the tendency will become more
decided. Lastly, I believe that religion may be taught in the
narrowest sectarian schools, however inadequately; and
that the morality resulting from even inadequate teaching
— and all religious teaching is in a manner inadequate —
will be essentially deeper and better than that which is
inculcated under merely social sanctions. And I would
therefore, in case it came to a matter of such choice, rather
support the humblest school in which the Gospel of our
Lord was taught according to the light of the sect, than
I would the most complete system of education in which
it was ignored. And if I am told that I am an unmitigated
sectarian, I will answer, I am sure I do not care.
For the present our duty seems to me to be to strain
every nerve to sustain the voluntary system, and to watch
for every opportunity of making a truly national system
possible : a sufficiently wide policy you will think, but one
on which it is not specially difficult to act, if our heart is
firm and our eyes open.
Assisted Education.
And now, finally, for Assisted Education. About this,
notwithstanding all that has been said and written about it
within the last year or two, we are still a good deal in the
dark ; and in what I am going to say now I shall be
unquestionably open to the criticism, that as I really know
little about it, I am rather trying to instruct myself in
thinking out one or two aspects of the matter than con
tributing any worthy element to a most important dis
cussion. And I may perhaps as well preface what little
I have to say with a statement of the practical conclusion
to which I am certain to come ; that is, the advice to all.

118 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
that we should not commit ourselves to a hostile conclusion
on the point, and that we should not, until much better
informed than we now are, commit ourselves to any definite
plan for carrying into effect such a scheme or portion of a
scheme as seems a priori most likely to reconcile itself to
our ideas of fitness in relation to it. With such a caution
we can afford perhaps to speculate a little.
Any scheme of free or assisted education must, by the
very force of the term, imply a gratuitous provision of some
part or of the whole of the education of some part or of
the whole of the population. Our first question would be.
Is there anything in such gratuitous provision that is cal
culated to derogate from the dignity and value of education
itself, or to damage the parent's idea of responsibility for
his children's training and welfare, or that is humiliating
or demoralising to the classes that are expected to take
advantage of it?
As to these points, I think that we may safely return a
ready negative. The dignity of education depends not on
what it costs, but on what it is ; its value depends on its
effects, not on its antecedents; the parent's responsibility
can be exercised in other and better ways than in the mere
payment of fees. If there is anything humiliating or
demoralising in accepting a free gift of the kind, it is a
humiliation that a very great many of us have gone
through without knowing it : for surely a very large
number of public men and useful men have in the free
schools and liberal provision of college founders and bene
factors received the education which has fitted them for
their positions. I will not venture to call myself a useful
man, but here I am, owing every step and item of my own
education and start in life to the gratuitous provision of
former ages or continued benevolence of more modern
institutions. There is nothing more humiliating in accept
ing such provision from public than from private or quasi-
private sources. We look back on the history that I have
sketched, and see how the early attempts to meet the want
were attempts inspired and carried into effect by charity
in free schools. We know, many of us by costly experience.

ASSISTED EDUCATION 119
how very small an element of school expense the children's
pence in small schools really is. We think, some of us
perhaps, that in the reconstruction of the endowed school
system within the last thirty years, too little weight has
been allowed to the claims of the class who might have
seemed the fittest recipients for local benefactions of the
kind, and that the education of the poorest class amongst
us might more generally than has been the case be thrown
upon the considerable funds that have been readjusted in
the grammar-school endowments for the benefit of the
middle classes. Something I am willing to allow for that,
although I know that it is a question which has many
ramifications, and believe that the general result has been
everything that was desired.
Against such an experience I do not think that the
generalisation, "People do not really care for an education
that costs them nothing," can be of a moment's weight.
They, or such of them as have opinions worth considering,
do set a high value on what education buys, the advance
ment, the development of the powers, the chances in social
and substantial success which their children are likely to
gain by it, even if they are too much depressed, or too
indolent, or too much the creatures of habit to value or to
desire such advantages for themselves. Nor, I think, can
we allow more than a very little weight to the impression
that the parent's notion of responsibility may be impaired.
We shall be sorry if it is ; but the outlook is not for the
parent's sense of responsibility, but for the future life of the
children, their prosperity and happiness, in which matters
the Church of Christ spiritually, and the State of England
temporally, stands not so much perhaps in loco parentis as
in the character of a parent with a higher range of duty
and a stronger sense of responsibility than the natural
parents can. The Church and State, the religion and the
government, of this century are a sort of godfather and god
mother of the next. I would put the matter, however, more
solemnly to the members of the Church of England and to
all others who desire to see England continuously flourish
ing, great, and Christian. Salus populi, in this sense, is

120 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
suprema lex. The bodies and souls of the children are of
more price than the prejudices and misinformed consciences
of the parents.
But how about the means and ways ? Here we get on
an altogether different plane. How much education is to
be assisted ? and how is it to be paid for ?
Elementary education since 1870 has been compulsory
— it has been costly : the payment of school fees has been
compulsory in a sense even when and where they were
paid by the Boards of Guardians. This compulsion has
enforced education up to a certain point, or to a certain age.
Beyond that point and age the progress of the child and
its continuance at school have been decided by different
considerations. We ask. How much of the elementary
education is to be free ? All that is now compulsory, or all
that is now optional? If it is that which is now compul
sory, it will put a premium on that parental economy
which we all want to discourage, of making education as
short, and the wage-earning capacity as early, as it can be
made. If it is that which is now optional, it will not meet
the demand, to meet which the project now in contempla
tion has to be drawn. Can we split the difference? — lay
down the rule that all children must remain at school up
to a certain age, but must in certain subjects have their
education free, and for certain subjects pay fees? That
would relieve the careless parent, and mulct the careful
one. Can we make the free education a matter of com
petition, as in the great public schools is now done by
scholarships? Nay ; I think not. Surely in this field we
want to help those most who are able to help themselves
least. Well, I am not an expert in these matters, nor, I
imagine, are many of you ; and until we have a definite
scheme before us, we do wisely in not committing ourselves
to more than a general principle, and that is, that it is most
desirable that all the education that we can offer shall be
as good as it can be, and as wide in its operation ; that it
shall be offered to all who are in need of it, and that its
bestowal shall be dependent on a general and central

THE NEW CODE 121
management established on a principle or principles, and
not on the changes and chances of local administration ;
that the education shall be as good as it can be to be free,
and as free as it can be to be good. It may be so free as
to be good for nothing ; it may be so good as to be free to
no one. It is for the experts, the statesmen, the practical
workers to strike the balance, and to reconcile growing
theory with improving practice.
One point more : we may be very sure that however free
and however thorough the State education of the future
may be, the religious education of the people will not be
provided for by grants from the Consolidated Fund or
from local rates. The very utmost that can be asked will
be liberation from the restriction that at present fetters
religious teaching in the board schools, and the permission
to make it at least an optional subject. The utmost that
can be expected will be a recognition of the fact, that the
present proscription of formularies is an unwarrantable
fettering of religious liberty which somehow or other
ought to be removed. I do not want to raise difficulties
new or old : my practical conclusion on the whole matter
is that no change in this or any other direction is in the
least likely to relieve the clergy or Churchmen generally
from any part of their responsibility in caring for the
religious education of the children ; but that, on the con
trary, whilst we may hope that the effect of such new
schemes as the one proposed will be to remove stumbling-
blocks, that very making clear of the highway will be to
increase our opportunities, and therewith stimulate, I trust,
our earnestness in providing for the care and tuition of
those of whom He who loves us and them so well tells us
that their angels do always behold the face of the Father
who is in heaven.
The New Code.
I ought to say a word or two about the New Code in
conclusion. I believe that all the managers of voluntary
schools may wisely welcome it as a boon. It certainly
eases the working of the inspection system very consider-

122 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
ably, and promises to increase the equable and equitable
treatment of the teaching staff as well as of the children
in the schools. But we must not for a moment lose sight
of the fact that no amelioration of code will compensate
for lukewarmness or want of energy in the promoters of
voluntary and denominational education — and that no
increase of pecuniary grants ought to have the effect of
relaxing the careful exertions of those who wish to see
the next and future generations religiously and virtuously
brought up. We are sometimes tempted, because the two
principles of voluntary education and religious education
are now working together, to confound them in their
essential character. Voluntary administration and religious
education are not the same thing. It may be a work, a
noble work of Christian benevolence to sustain a system of
elementary education that is worked by voluntary agency,
even if that voluntary agency is largely assisted from the
public funds ; but the essential point with Christian people
is not so much that the working be voluntary as that the
teaching be Christian — and for members of our Church,
that it be the teaching of the Church of England. I am
sure that that is the feeling of all who are helping in
Church schools ; if it were not, if it were merely the idea
of economy that keeps us back from the school-board
system, I should doubt whether the holding back were
either useful or likely to be lasting. From the other point
of view I have no doubt or hesitation. The future of
religious education depends on our determination that the
education shall be religious ; and, if that determination is
to be more than mere bravado, it involves action as well
as determination — more co-operation, more liberality, more
personal labour, and more generous appreciation of the
needs and exertions of our neighbours. After dwelling so
long on the subject, I will only add a strong recommenda
tion to make use of the machinery now devised and work
ing in populous places — by the means of Church School
Boards or School Councils of Education. These co-opera
tive institutions will, I trust, soon be generally active
amongst us, and will take in hand both the sustenance and

LAMBETH CONFERENCE 123
the improvement of the existing system. If the rich
parishes can assist the poor parishes, the large assist the
small, the forward help on the backward ; if the managers
of neighbouring schools can compare notes, see where and
how improvement is wanted, and where the means of
improvement may be sought and found ; if this can be,
by ruridecanal or archidiaconal boards acting with the
diocesan boards, economising money and labour, and
developing the work according to the exigencies and
opportunities of times and places — we shall have a sound
warrant for believing in our ultimate and entire success.
Anyhow, I commend the whole subject, in its several and
contrasted bearings, to the prayers and earnest considera
tion of clergy and laity alike.
Lambeth Conference (i38S).
The chief event that has marked English Church
history since the last Visitation is, of course, the Great
Conference of the Bishops of the Anglican community,
which was held at Lambeth in June and July, 1888.
It was a sight in no way outwardly remarkable to see
1 50 clergymen of various ages from thirty-five to eighty-
five met in so ecclesiastical a place as Archbishop's Juxon's
Hall ; although when you looked closer at them you could
see that every one had his mark of character, something
that designated him as a man whom men trusted, and who
himself trusted in God. There were Bishops of all sorts :
men of dignity, men of energy, men of experience, men
of theory, men of practice, men of obviously great ability,
men of modest and quiet authority, men of speech, and
men of wise silence. There was not one who had not
some share of all these, some mark more or less clearly
defined. All were shepherds of God's people. They came
from every quarter of the globe, and in a way represented
the churches of every land in which the English flag flies
or the English tongue is spoken, or English energy has
made its way. Each had had his personal training, and
none had come by any royal road to the place to which
God had called him. On the individuality of each, local

124 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
or national influences had had their several bearing, and
contributed an element to the diversity of experience and
training that might have issued in party, class, national,
scholastic, personal divisions, and which in the result
marked most conspicuously the substantial unity and
harmony of spirit which was at work amongst us. Of
those Bishops some few, even of the greatest, have been
taken from us during the short time that has intervened ;
in particular the Bishop of Durham, who in the leading
part which he took in our deliberations, and by the authori
tative wisdom, unwearied attention, and elaborate work
which were apparent in every word he said, and every line
he indited in connection with the Conference, showed him
self a very chief in counsel, pre-eminent in ability and
service, as in learning and devotion.
Well, these 150 met, prayed together, spoke to one
another as brothers, yes, as more than brothers in the
realisation of their membership of the one body : they
conferred together and uttered their minds with no reti
cence, and formulated their propositions, and joined in
their final utterance, and went back to the ends of the
earth strengthened in heart and sympathy, in experience
of the faithfulness of Him who had called them together.
The mere fact of their meeting and parting as they did
was a great thing : for whilst the brotherly kindness, the
essential spiritual unity that marked the occasion, was
most real as well as conspicuous, there was no doubt, nor
any wish to conceal the fact, that all were not of the same
way of thinking on some of the points that within the
liberty of the Anglican community serve to set men and
parties against one another, sometimes in antagonism that
verges on bitterness. There was no bitterness, however,
there ; men might well agree to differ on questions which
admit of no categorical solution, being united in the faith
and confidence in Him who in His own time will reveal all
truth to the true-hearted. And there was no assumption,
no attempt to assert for the Anglican Churches a position
which by the assumption condemned other communities;
we were not called together to judge or to condemn, or

LAMBETH CONFERENCE 125
even to tell those that were without our border that they
were without it. But there was no blinking of responsi
bility ; we did not underrate our own calling or our own
mission, because there might be, and we would not deny
that there are, other callings, other missions, other Churches,
other commissions than our own. So we tried to formu
late no new articles of belief, or rules of order, or rites of
worship ; simply to hold fast that which we have received,
trying to realise what we have, in the belief that, to such
as do so, more is given. But we set before ourselves certain
things to be said, to be said in judgment, and in prayer,
and in our measure of courage, in confidence in Him whose
ministers we believed ourselves to be ; certain things, not
a confession of faith, or syllabus of teaching, or programme
of reconstitution, but a denunciation of evils that are to
be fought against, and a body of counsels for work against
the evil and for the good, of patience, charity, and ex
tended work. This body of counsels was promulgated in
the encyclical letter, which has long been in the hands of
the clergy, and which the laymen of the Church might do
well to try to master, if they would understand the real
mind of the ministers and pastors to whom the real issues
of life and death do perhaps present themselves more
clearly and vividly than what are called the burning
questions of Church politics that divide secular or quasi-
secular opinion. Most of these real things lie deeper and
outside the area of small questionings, such as we see
discussed in the papers and talked of in railway carriages
and vestry meetings. Besides these, there were a few
matters touching Church constitution and order which, as
of convenience and tending to promote more easy and
cordial communication between the Churches, were thought
worthy of special treatment.
There were thirteen committees of the Conference, and
nineteen sets of resolutions resulting. The encyclical
letter may be analysed under the same number of heads.
Out of these, for my present purpose, I shall leave un
noticed those which concern the relations of the Anglican
Churches to ancient and foreign communions (ii., iii.), that

126 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
on the relations of diocese and branches of the Anglican
communion (ix.), and that on the care of emigrants (xii.),
so far as they do not touch upon other work which I shall
have to notice. Of the rest, that on Temperance, that
on Purity, those on Marriage, one on the Lord's Day
observance, are of such general interest, and the recom
mendations about them are so well known and, I trust,
worked amongst us, that I need not treat of them at
length. Of the others I shall speak in short detail. I will
satisfy myself with indicating the mind of the Conference
on the first four, only, however, so far as they are con
cerned with the aspect that these questions take in our
own diocesan working.
Temperance. I. With reference to the great question of Temperance,
the only point which I need call attention to is that
which connects itself with the doctrine of the dual basis
of the Church of England Temperance Society, which has,
through the work of the excellent founder and advocate.
Canon Ellison, been so much discussed in this diocese.
The Committee of the Conference urges : " The burden of
the work must be borne by those who are willing to
abstain entirely : those who are brought much into con
tact with intemperance should arm themselves with this
weapon of total abstinence in their own persons. Where-
ever the battle is of exceptional importance, or forms
for the time the first duty imposed on the clergy, total
abstinence should be the weapon employed." Total ab
stinence, however, is not pressed as a moral duty on all,
nor even as a counsel of perfection, nor as anything that
is by itself of merit. " All are bound to help the weak in
their battle with intemperance, but not all to help them
by total abstinence in their own persons." The practical
conclusions seem to me to be warranted not only by
experience, but by their own inherent reasonableness. I
need hardly mention the incidental resolution passed
against the use of unfermented material as a substitute
for wine in the administration of the Sacrament — a practice

LAMBETH CONFERENCE 127
which not only impairs the observance of our Saviour's
own institution, but amounts practically to the Communion
in one kind, a point about which so much of the Reforma
tion struggle was directly concerned.
Purity. 2. The Report of the Committee on Purity, which was,
I believe, mainly the work of the late Bishop of Durham,
is a beautiful and touching document, and pledges the
Bishops to confer with the clergy and laity on the wisest
steps to be taken for the accomplishment of that reform
which is so urgently needed. It enumerates several points,
eight in all, upon which, as a basis of consultation, general
action may be set on foot. I would commend these points
especially to the consideration of those who are working
systematically upon the matter in hand. The treatment
of the subject is extremely hazardous in all but the wisest
hands. The very exposition of the evil and its remedies
is liable to the danger of suggesting that which it is under
taking to prevent or counteract. The very dwelling of
the mind of the earnest worker on such a subject is liable
to the risk attendant on all engrossing matters of medita
tion. Public discussion is open to the danger of making
the young and innocent familiar with the details of sin.
There are great risks in any organisation for working with
the evil. Sermons to men, or sermons to women, books
on purity, questions for self-examination — whatever ex
periment you like to mention, all abounds with difficulty.
The very education that is directed to keep purity before
the eye as an ideal to be worked to, the very caution that
is intended to keep the knowledge of uncleanness out of the
sight of the young, provokes a curiosity which is in itself
more dangerous than the familiarity with revolting gross-
ness. Still, our work is given us by Him who knows what is
in man, and our strength is given us for the work. I shall
trust that all who set themselves specially to deal, whether
in societies, or single-handed, with this festering sore, will act
on the principles which the devout and holy man who drew
up the report I am speaking of has so formulated for us.

128 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
Divorce. 3. I need not speak in detail at all on the report or
resolutions on divorce. As a matter of fact they are
really no more than an enunciation of accepted principles.
The evil with which they are concerned is, as is obvious,
one phase of that of which I have just been speaking.
Such remedy as we in our own sphere can wisely apply to
the cure of the relaxation of public sentiment on the
matter is, I think, rather to be found in the realisation
of the sanctity and holiness of marriage than in invective
against a law of divorce for which we are in no wise
responsible. In all such material the law of the Gospel is,
" Overcome evil with good." Purity itself is most power
fully advocated by the pure lives of those who desire to
work up to the model " as He is pure " ; and those in
whom that love of the pure is well grown, will, as a very
natural operation of their spiritual being, turn away from
that which is evil, until to the pure all things are pure.
The question of heathen polygamy, which, in the delibera
tions of the Conference came close on the treatment of
divorce, need not occupy us now. But the general prin
ciple that marriage, as the basis of all social life, and
consecrated to us by the excellent mystery that is betwixt
Christ and His Church, should be set before ourselves and
our people, not as a mere conventional or economical
arrangement, as an expedient for the maintenance of the
world, or as a remedy against sin, but as a holy calling
ordained by God for the perfection of human happiness in
innocence in this mortal life, is a matter which cannot
safely be neglected, that need not be blinked, and that no
reticence need be allowed to obscure.
Sunday. 4. The Sunday question, which is becoming more and
more a practical problem, especially in our riverside
parishes, was treated very briefly by the Committee which
reported upon it. They recognised that there is a growing
licence as to observance, and urged that the increasing
laxity of the wealthy and the increasing encroachments on

REUNION 129
the rest of the servants and others engaged in places where
service is called for, are points in which guarded action
should be taken. The difficulty of dealing with this sub
ject is peculiar, and is peculiarly aggravated by the fact
that Sunday observance has in this country acquired or
preserved a character almost exceptional in Christian lands.
And this to such an extent that to many, individuals and
classes, a strict Sabbatarianism has become the most real,
as well as outward and visible sign of religious life, a con
science to them for themselves and their neighbours, the
test of their religious sincerity, which gone, all the rest
is in danger of being lost. The existence of this feeling
makes the matter one of great tenderness in the hands of
those who, whilst fully believing in the sanctity of the day
and desirous of its religious observance, still would desire to
relax the sternness of obligatory idleness, by amusement
or instruction that would be sanctified by wholesome use.
We cannot thus safely defy what to us is an exaggeration
or a prejudice, even in order to promote a more real and
rational consecration of the day. And it is all the more
difficult when we are hampered by the self-indulgent and
defiantly irreligious conduct of those who set the law
of observance altogether on one side, and make the day of
God a day of luxurious entertainments, a burden to their
servants, and a temptation to their neighbours, a stumbling-
block in the way alike of the ignorant and prejudiced,
and of the intelligent and earnest-minded of the clergy
and laity, who, knowing that it is a day the Lord hath
made, would make it a day of joy and gladness in the
right way.
The remaining topics on which I have set myself to
speak are three : the question of Home Reunion, that of
Socialism, and that of authoritative standards of doctrine
and worship.
Reunion In reference to the first, what the Conference did was to
pass a resolution proposing that the Anglican communities
through their constituted authorities should make it known

130 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
that they were ready to confer with the representatives of
other Christian communions in the English-speaking races
in order to consider what steps can be taken either
towards corporate reunion or towards such relations as
may prepare the way for fuller organic union hereafter.
Four articles were set out as a basis on which home
reunion might be approached — the sufficiency of Holy
Scripture, the acceptance of the Apostles' and Nicene
Creeds, the two Sacraments of the Gospel, and the historic
episcopate. And a supplementary resolution urged the
dissemination of information as to the standards of doctrine,
worship, and government, among the several religious
bodies of the English-speaking races.
It is not for me now to characterise or to criticise these
resolutions, or the way in which they were received by the
Nonconformist Churches and their representatives when
they were made public; much less the answers which were
made to the announcement which the Archbishop of Can
terbury made to the various bodies interested. What I
have to say must be on the general principles that underlie
both the resolutions and the replies.
It appears to me that the articles of basis constitute the
one side of a concordat which states the very minimum of
what the Church of England could advance, without a
practical renunciation of her own vital position. The
historic episcopate, not merely as a method of Church
government — in which sense it could scarcely be called
historic — but as a distinct, substantive, and historical trans
mission of the commission of the apostles, in and by which
our Lord formed His disciples through all generations into
a distinctly organised body or Church — the historic episco
pate is of the very essence of the Church of England ; and
could not be suffered to be called in question by any body
or individual desirous to be incorporated in our Communion.
And the assertion of such a principle involves either the
admission to Holy Orders by the Bishops of all presby-
terian or otherwise ordained ministers who are desirous
of being united to us, before we could recognise their
position or join their services with ours. To make this

REUNION 131
demand appears to me to be somewhat unreasonable : the
very essence of presbyterianism is presbytery, and theessence
of historical presbyterianism is the negation of historic
episcopacy. To expect reunion on a basis which means
with one of the two parties a renunciation of its essential
principle, seems, I say, unreasonable and unpractical. In
saying this I must not be understood as meaning more
than I say. There are presbyterian Churches with a
historical succession of great authority and completeness.
In affirming our historic episcopate I am throwing no
doubt either on their constitutional consistency, or on their
spiritual work. God has many ways of doing his work, and
because I maintain that we have one of His ways in our
Church, I am not to be said to maintain that that which is
in use in Scotland, we will say, is not of His ways; or that
other ministrations than ours are dead and useless. If I
wanted to say so, or thought so, I should not be deterred
from saying it by mere considerations of convenience. In
the same way, the enunciation of the law of the Sacra
ments, in the third of the articles of basis, seems to require
on the part of the Baptists a renunciation of their essential
principle — the principle upon which they and their fore
fathers justify their separation from us, the principle around
which their corporate existence is gathered, the principle in
which their historicial experience and all the conservative
instincts of their ecclesiastical personality are constituted
and conserved, the principle, in fact, which by the working
of these influences has become so much a part of their
religious and even spiritual life, that it could not be sur
rendered without a shock that would unsettle all that is
fixed and firm in them. Of the other two articles, the
sufficiency of Holy Scripture and of the two creeds, I need
not speak in the same sense ; for as to the first no Christian
community or Church that could come within the contem
plation of a scheme of reunion would deny it, and as to the
second, there would be difficulties of concordant interpreta
tion analogous to the lines of division which I have noted
in reference to the third and fourth.
If I were discussing a scheme for reconstituting a national

132 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
religious establishment which should be concerned with
endowments and jurisdictions only, I should have to take
in further the position of Roman Catholics and Unitarians ;
but the case is different here, where spiritual unity and
religious co-operation are in question, and I need not go
beyond the lines of the resolution.
Am I then to be understood to be objecting to Home
Reunion altogether, or as desirous to check the efforts of
those who are working towards it, or as despairing of any
practical result of the earnest prayers and efforts of God's
people in this land after unity ? Far from it. I believe
that the want of unity amongst Christians is the great
obstacle to the final victory of Christ's kingdom in the
world. I believe that the principle of His prayer for such
unity, that the world by the unity of His believing people
should know that the Father hath sent Him, lies deep in
the hearts of all who love Him and His Church. I believe
that no sacrifice short of the sacrifice of the truth that He
has revealed to us, and that we believe ourselves to have
received in the way in which we have realised it, would be
too great to make for the securing of that unity. But I
believe that He has caused or suffered us and our dissentient
brethren to be led by different ways to the truth, or the
measure of it that we have been led to, and that we have
no more right to anticipate His time of reconciliation by
asking them to give up theirs than we have to give up our
own. In His due time, I believe, the unity will come; but
it will not be by mutual sacrifices of reality and sincerity.
It will not be secured by illusory projects of comprehension.
But there are two points more. First, there are many
matters of duty and privilege in which religious people and
religious bodies can co-operate — co-operate not for con
fusion, but for order and toleration and resistance to evil.
We can combine for all works of material usefulness— for
hospitals, and the relief and help of the poor, for resistance
to prevailing forms of corruption, for temperance, for the
defence of the law of marriage, and social and personal
purity. We can combine to secure for one another fair
treatment in educational matters. Where we cannot join

AUTHORITATIVE STANDARDS 133
in administrative work we can join in efforts to secure for
each other administrative freedom and fair treatment.
Wherever we can agree to differ, we can agree to the
weapons and laws of lawful emulation.
And secondly, we can try to understand one another
better. Not in cliques and parties courting favour with
sections by minimising differences and sinking principles,
but by putting before one another the true nature of our
respective claims, the true agreements on which we main
tain our distinctive tenets, and the true and genuine feeling
which all real Christians feel or try to feel for all those who
aspire to be recognised by that great name. In the further
ance of this design, I trust more to the progress of religious
education in its elementary and higher aspect, than to any
other influence, social or legislative. As men's minds widen
they must become more capable of appreciating the varying
aspects of truth and the various experiences and results of
historic training. But here I must leave this point now.
And I have said so much upon it that I must abridge
what I have to say on the other points into a very few
remarks. Authoritative Standards.
I take the question of Authoritative Standards first, be
cause it connects itself directly with that of home reunion.
Our authoritative standards, loosely stated, are the Holy
Scriptures, the three creeds, the Book of Common Prayer,
and the Thirty-nine Articles. These stand in the closest
connexion : the Scriptures, as the sufficient guide of faith
and depository of spiritual truth ; the creeds, the concen
tration of the faith and truth revealed in the Scriptures ;
the Prayer Book, the expression in public devotion, and
more or less in private devotion also, of the intercourse
between God and His Church and people, holding that
faith and truth ; and the Thirty-nine Articles, containing a
formulated, somewhat scholastic, statement of the leading
points in the Church system, arranged for the determina
tion of our position and relation to existing communities
which have had a different history from our own. All

134 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
these, and our relation to them severally, have been long
before the world and the Churches. But it has been felt
that in these days of hurry and of increased intercourse,
and of improved education, there is room for a shorter
declaration of the truths on which we stand than the
Thirty-nine Articles, one more ready to hand than can be
secured by a careful study of the Book of Common Prayer
and Articles together, and one that would be relieved from
the incidental and temporary conditions that make the
Articles in some points appear to be a distorted or ex
aggerated, too general or too minute, presentment of the
confession of a great Christian Church.
You may remember the attempt that was made a year
or two ago to obtain the assent of Convocation in our
province to a few questions and answers on the subject of
the Church. Something of the same kind is wanted for
the representation of the essential points of our confession
and standards before other Churches and for the instruction
of simple believers. I believe that it will be undertaken
in an honest, comprehensive, and loving spirit ; and that
under God's gracious help it may be used for much
good. But both the composition and acceptance of such
a symbolic utterance is embarrassed by the mutual mis
trust and suspicious attitude which religious partisanship
has long nurtured amongst us, amidst which the very most
elementary lessons of the Gospel seem to be forgotten —
" Charity thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in the truth.'' May God help us in both work and
word.Socialism. The last of the reports to which I will ask your attention
is that on Socialism. I will call your attention to it without
commenting on its contents, restricting myself in what I am
going to say to another perhaps transient but at present
very important aspect of a very important question. There
is much socialism in the air of these times : there is a
political socialism, and a religious socialism, a class social
ism, and a sentimental socialism ; a socialism whose law is

SOCIALISM 135
the bearing of one another's burdens, and a socialism whose
practice is the playing fast and loose with one another's
rights. We have heard a great deal of the war between
labour and capital; and in the history of the dock disputes
last year and this there have been incidents more than
sufficient to call out sympathy and to inspire serious mis
giving. But my question now is : What is the duty
and policy of the clergy and Christian laity who are not
directly and personally connected with the actual dis
putes ?
The first point is one ludicrous almost in its simplicity.
Let everyone learn the simple principles of political
economy; let every clergyman so far qualify himself for
beginning to form a capacity for judging of the matter, not
accepting the principles of political economy as divine or
necessary truths, but as representing the beliefs and motives
upon which those who take part in these controversies
believe themselves to be acting, and according to which
they would be content to be judged.
The second point is a little deeper , do not, as religious
men and clergymen, identify yourselves with classes or
causes that are not distinctly and directly religious, so as to
disqualify yourselves from doing your duty to those who
are of the other classes or other causes. You are the
servants, not only of the poor, not only of the rich, not
only of the capitalist, not only of the labourer — but of all
the servants, of all the people, of God. And you must
not let any partisanship, social or political or ecclesiastical
either, disqualify you from what is your praise and glory.
And, thirdly and lastly ; if from position, or by educa
tion, or by any other practically irresistible impulse, you
are forced into the arena of controversy, do not begin
or join in strife without assaying your armour. Know
what you are doing — equip yourselves with study of laws
and men. And remembering that in human affairs no two
parties ever are in opposition on questions on which much
cannot be said on both sides ; remembering that in human
affairs no rule is without its exceptions ; remembering
that in human affairs no one principle ever works in isola-

136 FIRST VISITATION CHARGE
tion or in vacuo, and that, therefore, the man who risks all
on, or rules all on, one principle, in disregard or contempt
for the working of other principles, is sure to fail and so
mislead others to their fall ; — remembering those three
points and whose servant you are, and whose spirit of
wisdom, understanding, counsel, ghostly strength, know
ledge, and true godliness, you have prayed for, let all your
dealings be the dealings of men, the beginning and ending
and fulfilling of whose work is in the fear of God and the
love of those whom Christ died for.
Things Spiritual and Natural.
In conclusion, let me put before you very shortly one
further consideration : our whole work, of clergy and laity,
is to prepare a people for the Lord — a people united in
heart and faith and good purpose, working together and
for one another; a body not divided, but conscious of unity
in growth and sympathy. And in this work things spiritual
and things natural lie very close together. The clergy
have to do with both ; the laity have to do with both ; the
things natural are the things spiritual spiritually con
sidered. Let the clergy employ themselves in seeking the
temporal as well as the spiritual improvement of their
people ; let them not be ashamed to learn the matters of
business which constitute the material interests of their
neighbours. I do not say, let the clergy be farmers or
sanitary inspectors, or doctors or lawyers, but let them
learn so far the language and attitude of those who have
such interests, that when and where the opportunity comes
they may do their quota of service, and try to draw class
and class together in sympathy and mutual helpfulness.
Despite of what education is doing to put classes on an
equality, it has not yet done enough to show them that old
truth, that what touches one class touches all. If the
capitalist is ever to understand the workman, if the farmer
is ever to understand the labourer, it is by the cultivation
of that sympathy and helpfulness which it is the special
province of the clergyman to teach and exemplify, basing
it upon the true principle of Christian unity of purpose,

THINGS SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL 137
interest, and destiny. The Church is the salt of the earth;
if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall the earth be
salted ? — the salt itself is worthless for the land or for the
dunghill. Do not take these words amiss. Clergy and
churchwardens, too, have a great work in drawing hearts
together, classes to classes, ranks to ranks ; but it must be
done, as every other religious or active duty has to be done,
by action upon individuals and through individuals on one
another, in church and out of church, in school and out of
school, in work and in play, in sickness and in health,
whenever and wherever the leaven of sympathy can be
made to work.

SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
APRIL AND MAY, 1893.

Higher Criticism.
OF important topics you will not be surprised to hear
that I regard as the most important the discussions on
the higher criticism of the Old Testament Scripture, and
the resulting, but even more directly absorbing question,
how far the results of that criticism may be allowed to affect
the doctrine of the Incarnation, especially in relation to the
fulness and perfection of our Lord's knowledge. Three
years ago, in my first charge, I ventured to advise that, in
the contemplation of these questions, we should do well to
maintain an attitude of calmness, patience, and tolerance
for a developing view; whilst holding firmly — and it is
only by those who do hold firmly that such calmness,
patience, and tolerance can be maintained — whilst holding
firmly the divine authority of scripture, and the perfect
knowledge, as well as the perfect power, of the Son of God
Incarnate. I certainly was inclined at the time to be hope
ful, that God, who knows the hearts of those who raise
these questions, and sees the faith and sincerity of their
treatment, would guide, as time went on, their investiga
tions and speculations to the confirmation of the faith of
others, to edification rather than to the increase of doubts,
difficulties, and negations, amongst earnest inquirers after
truth. Now, however, whilst I would still urge the calmness,
patience, and tolerance as before, I confess that I do not
see that the dangers which I apprehend have become less
dangerous than they were, or the crisis of belief less critical.
138

HIGHER CRITICISM 139
Time has been given for the explanation of difficulties, and
they have not been explained : opportunity for the recon
ciliation of inconsistencies, and they have not been re
conciled : occasion, ample occasion, for the reconstruction
of affirmative arguments which seemed to be impaired by
the negative character of the criticism, and they are, to say
the least, very slow, indeed, in the process of reconstruc
tion. Meanwhile, the leaven of misgiving has spread : the
sermons preached in churches, where better things might
be expected, have, in the mouths of some of the younger
clergy, I fear, taken an apologetic and attenuating tone
with regard to the great features of the faith : and the
popular foible, that nothing should be believed against
which any objection could or can be raised — a weakness of
public sense, which gives to the argument of negation
a preponderant importance before discussion is fairly
begun — has spread accordingly. Manuals of theology
are drawn up and circulated, in which these difficulties
have a place, and find far too irresolute and indeterminate
handling; matters are treated as conclusively proved that
are only negatively mooted, and the true suspensive atti
tude of real criticism is superseded by the assumption that
everything requires to be re-stated and re-proved.
I have no wish to say anything severe of the scholars
whose work has conduced to these painful stages of theo
logical thought; for real results, I fain would hope, they
are not. I believe that in many cases, certainly in all the
cases of men with whom I am personally acquainted, it is
the very strength of the conviction that the verities of the
faith must come out unimpaired from the ordeal with
which they are being tested, that makes them bold in
the handling of matters which men of less vivid convictions
would handle more cautiously. I admire the strength of
their convictions, but I grieve over the short-sightedness,
and I had almost said the self-will or absolute selfishness,
of their procedure. A man may sometimes, by reason
of his own strong conviction and faith in his own cause,
overstate the case of the adversary to a degree that is very
dangerous to those who, with all candour, are not blessed

140 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
with the same strength of conviction or the same know
ledge. A man's humility will occasionally blind him to
the fact that he may unintentionally be misleading those
to whom his sincerity and humility constitute a strong
attraction. Rash confidence and too generous display
of candour will never justify us in understating the merits
of the cause which we have to defend, or in contenting
ourselves with incompletely realising the issues of our
points and methods of controversy : whether it be the
question of Inspiration, or the Roman Catholic question,
or of Education, or any other that touches the life of man.
In such matters the theologian must be more than the
mere lawyer or the mere logician. Souls are at stake ;
and no one can deceive himself with the belief that the
want of sympathy and care for others can be excused
by the finesse of the advocate or the assumed impartiality
of the impetuous critic, or even by the ingenuous setting
forth of the difficulty which the writer has of making clear
to himself his own convictions.
But I will say something now of the questions, rather
than of the school of students that are raising them. Most
of us can remember the cry that was raised thirty years
ago about the Bible being treated like any other book, and
of the good men who tried to believe that if it were so
treated the result would be that its divine character and
authority would come out all the clearer from the treat
ment. I have no doubt that if it were so treated, that
would be the result; and perhaps, by-and-by, when the
bonds of old faith and the new elasticity of emancipated
thought have changed their present form and character as
forces of action and reaction, it may come to pass. But
I do not expect to live to see it ; and to men who have
lived and worked and looked on so long as I have, it seems
impossible that the Bible could ever be treated so. The
Bible is not like any other book ; no other book comes to
us with a claim authorised by the Church of our Baptism
as containing the Word of God ; or containing so constant
assertion of its claim to be heard as the Word of God ;
or as cited, one part of it by another part, by a sort of

HIGHER CRITICISM 141
mutual testimony, as of divine authority, or as consistently
upheld by the long consent of the Christian ages as the
Law and the Testimony. So it comes to us, and it is not
reduced to the level of other books even by the complete
repudiation of every point of this claim at the hands of
those who would treat it otherwise. This means that it is
to us a paramount witness of truth : if it fail, that is, if
the Lord Jesus is not, in it and through it all, the key
and binding-string and central truth that holds it all
together, then the result of its promulgation is the most
ghastly of all delusions and disappointments by which
all the best instincts of human nature have ever been
repelled and belied ; it is a phantasm, by which He who
would deceive us or let us deceive ourselves to our own
destruction would be no fit object of worship, even if such
a person exist at all : a book which comes to us thus
cannot be like any other.
But, secondly, our own relation to it is such that we
cannot look upon it so. We have been brought up in
profound respect for it and love of it. We have been
taught to base all our faith in the unseen world upon it ;
our convictions or anticipations of eternity ; our belief in
immortality ; our ideas of the government of the world, of
the existence of God, of the law of life, right, and virtue; of
our own subjection to and inability to keep that law ;
of the love that provided a way to forgiveness and restora
tion; of the work of the atonement, of the Incarnation and
the sacrifice ; of the resurrection of the dead and eternal
judgment ; of the destiny of our own souls and of theirs,
without whom happiness in its true perfection is altogether
inconceivable ; in a word, our knowledge, if we call it
knowledge, our apprehension, if we dare not call it know
ledge, of all that is desirable, hopeful, and other than
miserable in this life and that which is to follow it. The
whole form and character of our religious thought is framed
on it; all has come to us through the teaching of this book,
or through the teaching of the Church which bases its
authority and teaching upon it. It is impossible for those
who have been so taught to put themselves into a neutral

142 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
or impartial attitude regarding it, without such a strain,
such a wrench of mental and moral force, as drives them
past the central station of fair judgment. The effort that
carries us so far carries us further. Indifference to Holy
Scripture means disregard for it : we cannot treat it as any
other book even if it were susceptible of such treatment ;
but it is like none other, and, indeed, it is the fact that it
is like no other that has led critics to apply to it methods
of arbitrary, wanton, and conjectural criticism, which,
applied to Greek or Roman, or even Anglo-Saxon litera
ture, would be laughed out of court.
But do not think that there is not something to be said
on the other side. First, the Bible, although speaking with
authority, speaks with an authority that contemplates
proof and deliberate acceptance ; and, secondly, we, unless
our acceptance is to be servile and abjectly unintelligent,
are bound to do our utmost to realise both what we
believe and why we believe it. That is to say, the Book
itself recognises, and we by our very constitution of
thought and affection are bound to the exercise of what
it recognises, the necessity of judgment, the proving and
holding fast.
Now if these two considerations formed a dilemma, the
only possible attitude of fair thought would be one that,
long before now, would have set the Bible, and all religious
ideas drawn from it, outside the region of practical ques
tioning : either it must be accepted with the mechanical
receptiveness of an empty vessel, or it must be treated as on
a level with a leading article : it must long ago have lost
the hold on the heart which, humanly speaking, is the
result of nineteen centuries of faith. There is no such
dilemma : so much is clear to our apprehension of what is
going on in the world now, in commentary, in controversy,
in exposition, in inspiration. The practical lesson is the
inculcation of a habit of moral or spiritual, and mental or
intellectual effort. Morally and spiritually we must try to
approach the study with a living and loving sense of what
we owe to our Bible ; grateful acceptance and prayer for
guidance; trustful receptiveness: whatever mental trials

HIGHER CRITICISM 143
await us in it, we hold our Bible as the gift of our Lord's
love, with a desire to prove true that which we humbly
believe that the guidance of the Holy Spirit disposes us to
believe as true. The effort must be trustful ; it must also
be patient ; longing to see clearer but conscious of its own
imperfection, ready to work sincerely, candidly, industri
ously, and also waiting humbly on what may be the divine
reticence in revelation ; recognising contradictions that we
cannot reconcile, looking down promising vistas of loving
anticipation that seem for the present to close in obscurity;
analysing records of events and prophecies of events, that
need to be brought into correlation with each other and
with the general purpose of Revelation, and with the course
of the history of the Church and of the world. The patient
attitude will not be shaken, either by the impetuosity of
spiritual devotion or by intolerance of intellectual suspense.
And a third point is humility ; the sense of our own
fallibility in faith and apprehension of truth, our human
and personal ignorance.
Everyone, I imagine, would grant this much on the moral
and spiritual side. But how about the mental or intellectual
attitude of the believing critic? Here comes the great
difficulty. Given a book which, as I have said, on its own
claims and on the grounds of our personal relation to it,
is unlike any other book, how can we criticise it? Does
criticism really require a position of such indifference as
amounts to unfriendliness ? Must all criticism begin with
negation ? How about the parallels and analogies of other
literatures and histories on which the laws of criticism
must, if they are to have comparative value, be framed ;
how about the nature of the proof which is to be demanded,
and with or without which the mind of the student, study
ing trustfully and lovingly, is or is not to be contented ?
How about theories of inspiration, and the questions of
scientific, literary, and historic investigation ? And what
of the relation between spiritual devotional study, and the
results of these sorts of questionings ? We cannot say that
these are simple considerations, or that it is easy to formu
late answers that will answer all the questions that are

144 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
suggested by them. There is a criticism which analyses
and distinguishes in the hope of making that which is
obscure in belief clear and coherent. There is another
which, beginning from an untrustful starting-point, calls
everything into question, assumes the validity of every
negative suggestion, almost the equal cogency of every
new conjecture. There is a criticism which is a very
wantonness of experimental curiosity. There is a need
of distinction and caution in calling these by the same
name. But now, first, we have to remember that, as different
subject-matters are only susceptible of or amenable to
different methods of proof, we must not look for equal
cogency in all conclusions from the tests of evidence
applied to the Bible, either in its several parts, or as com
pared with other books. It is only in mathematical matters
that perfect demonstration can be secured, and the Bible
is not a mathematical book. Next in degree to mathe
matical demonstration comes the sort of proof that natural
science or physical science uses. Some of the weapons
alleged against the theories of inspiration of the Bible are
drawn from the scientific armoury ; such, for instance, are
those connected with the theory of creation and the doctrine
of evolution. With regard to these, which lie rather across
the line that I am taking, I must so far digress as to say
that scientific terms are used in the Bible only for the
purpose of helping a revelation of the power and energy
and will of Almighty God; a revelation which, to be a
revelation at all, must be made in language intelligible to
those to whom it was made, and which must accordingly
be open to the limitations of human speech and language.
As it is a growing revelation, its language is liable to
variety of interpretation, as the knowledge of the laws of
nature increases, and that interpretation is susceptible of
readjustment. The original word, cleared of the incrusta
tion of successive interpretations, is simple, and, its purpose
being admitted, lies outside of scientific criticism. Evolu
tion, if it be true, is but what one may call the grammar
of the book of nature : an explanation of a part of the law

HIGHER CRITICISM 145
of the working of powers for whose origination it cannot,
does not really attempt to give account. And yet before
the demand be made that the history of creation as told in
Holy Scripture should be surrendered as less than perfectly
and essentially true, science should be called on to produce
a theory more reasonable, more in accord and consistent
with its own manifold demands, than the theory of a per
sonal creator and a definite period of creation supplies.
This, I think it is no treason to truth to affirm, no system
of science has yet done. Whether or no the first chapter of
Genesis can be or ever will be reconciled with the discoveries
of physical science, it is surely clear that no system of
physical science has yet provided or can be expected to
provide a theory of causation, or motive power, which is
more reasonable : the whole cosmogony of evolution can
offer only to trace and disentangle the links of a chain, the
origination and maintenance of which depend on causes
that are aS much beyond it as they are beyond the reach
of any other effort of human thought. The whole array of
modern philosophy, negative or positive, hypothetical or
inductive, has not got nearer solving the problem of exist
ence than did the schoolmen. But that I must leave : a
conjecture which is not disproved is not therefore to be
regarded as proved, and a theory which is not proved is
not therefore to be regarded as disproved.
As to the historical and literary criticism : one may ask,
how can the principles of an art which depends on com
parisons be applied to a material which is without a parallel,
and where will you find a parallel to this material ? Seek
it in what are called the sacred books of the East : what
do you find there? Except that they are sacred books,
nothing comparable with it or parallel to it in spirit or
authority. If any of them claim to be older than the
Bible, the claim, if proved, would simply amount to a proof
that the antiquity claimed for Hebrew literature is no
unwarrantable assumption. I am sure that the true result
of arch^ological inquiry as to the history of the most
ancient nations, is the proof that, so far as literary possi
bilities are concerned, there is nothing at all that would
L

146 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
make incredible the antiquity which the earlier scriptures
seem to claim and with which, humanly speaking, the
evidence of their authenticity is so largely bound up. And
are not the older scriptures, nay all of them, and the
psalms especially, in all moral and spiritual bearings, as
much out of commensurable relation with the latest as
with the earliest date assigned to them ? If the literary
remains of Egypt and Assyria are to any extent older
than the Pentateuch, they simply show that there is no
impossibility in assigning the authorship to Moses. Older
or more modern, they have no element of divine relation.
Here and there there may be suggestions of a primitive
light, there is, so far at least as they are interpreted, very
little of the conviction of sin or righteousness or judgment,
nothing of love, redemption, and life eternal. Neither does
the rationale of language, considering the necessity of
intelligible transmission, which involves an adaptation to
the intelligence of the transmitters, supply any decisive
element for criticism. We have no right to maintain the
continuous miracle of invariable textual exactness for a
period of two thousand years, many centuries of which
were centuries of confusion and dispersion, during which
ancient forms of language may have suffered translation
and revision. But I am not aware that much stress is
really laid on the minutiae of linguistic variations, which
are themselves beyond the range of comparative criticism,
or that much categorical dogmatism is based on facts,
if there be any such extant, of the history of textual
development.Results of Critickm.
It is in the testing and tracing of historical developments
that the greatest efforts of the higher criticism are made,
and the results reached, which by some are regarded as
most certain, and which to others appear at once most
hazardous and destructive. Far be it from me to speak of
these with the rashness of dogmatism. Historic criticism
is a very patient study, with a very cautious method, very
suspensive conclusions. History is itself research ; and a

RESULTS OF CRITICISM 147
research constantly expecting and receiving revision. It
must be so, by the very limitation of human knowledge,
in the region of matters with which it is most conversant ;
the very variety of human records differing with the angle
of vision, the means, the capacity, and the purpose of the
recorder. How much more so when and where the record
is one without parallel ! The criticism of the Bible from
this point of view, the point of historic analogies, is full
of risks ; full of temptation ; conjecture is very alluring,
when and where the conjecturer is sure that his guess can
only be met by another guess, or by the enunciation that
guessing is unphilosophical, the acceptance of old theory
being unphilosophical too : the very idea of a guess in
volves a tacit suspicion of the authority as it stands.
There is a destructive criticism, lawful within certain
limits ; wherever it has been applied to Holy Scripture
itself, it has failed. There is a constructive criticism also
within certain limits applicable and lawful ; this has been
used with Holy Scripture, and the result has been a sort of
confirmation of some of the evidences, the loss of which
would have been important. There is a wanton criticism —
tentative by destructive action, tentative in constructive
operation — against which we have to guard all the more
carefully because it is liable to be so used, in irresponsible
levity of hypothesis, as to shake the faith of those who
listen curiously to it ; a trifling with the word of God. It
is a grievous thing when, treating conjectures as proved
conclusions, men challenge the whole of the accepted
evidence of the creeds on the truth of such considerations
— most grievous of all, beyond limit of patience or silence
in protest, when conjectural criticism is admitted as
evidence against the word of Him who is the Truth.
For here the crisis becomes most urgent, the issues most
imminent and most fatally important. I cannot imagine
greater issues than those which these considerations are
likely to force upon us. If the result of the present
speculations should be the displacement or rejection of
any considerable part of the Jewish law and record, it
would involve the re-writing of the whole of Catholic, of

148 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
Christian theology ; and, what is more critical still, such
an explanation of the way in which the Old Testament
Scriptures are used in the New as would call in question
the knowledge and honesty of the writers whom we
believe to be inspired, and in some matters endanger the
authority of the words reported to be spoken by our Lord.
For we have no doubt that we have at the present day
the Old Testament Scriptures in much the same form as
that in which they were before our Saviour in His
earthly life ; and we have no doubt as to the meaning of
the appeal to the Law and the Prophets which He himself
used, and which, in argument after argument, is pursued
in the writings of St. Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews.
This needs no proof, argument, or comment from me : the
Law and the Prophets are cited not as an argumentum ad
hominem, but as a body of evidence of continuous, of
eternal counsel.
Is it enough to say we are content to accept the Old
Testament, implicitly as our Saviour accepts and uses it ;
that which it is to Him it shall be to us ; in ignorance, in
doubt, in perplexity, in variety of applicability, in con
fusion of meaning, in incoherence of argument, in inappro-
priateness of quotation ; in uncritical and uninquiring
acquiescence, we are willing to hold it on His warrant?
There is something to be sa|d for such a loyal, trustful
acceptance, but it is scarcely a fulfilment of the recom
mendation to search the Scripture for evidence, or for
reproof, or doctrine, or correction, or instruction in right
eousness. Still as to special phases of questioning it must
be practically sufficient for many minds ; and beyond
there is no room for appeal : —
" What His word doth make it
That I believe and take it."
But practically the matter cannot rest here. If our
Saviour Himself is supposed to be charged with using as
evidence matter that is not evidence, either by intentional
perversion or hazardous interpretation, and such charge is
proved, then His authority falls to the ground, and we

HIGHER CRITICISM 149
are of all men the most miserable. No Christian can
tolerate such a supposition, and none do attempt it.
Losing hold on Him as the Truth, we lose our hold on
Him and truth together. But here comes in the specula
tion about the limitation of our Lord's knowledge, and the
interpretation of the word in the Epistle to the Philippians,
which, in the Authorised Version is read, " made Himself
of no reputation," and in the Revised Version, " emptied
Himself" On St. Paul's use of this word, as I need not
tell you, a formulated idea has been raised that threatens
to affect the most essential doctrines connected with the
Incarnation ; and our Lord is supposed accordingly to
have, in becoming man, divested Himself of certain powers
which He had with the Father, of almightiness and all-
knowledge, so far as the exercise of them through His
human nature could, or could not, be supposed to be
possible. That such can be the direct and proper meaning of the
word "emptied Himself" in the passage cited, I cannot, not
withstanding the array of authority with which I may be
pressed, at all admit. There must be a parallel between the
example of our Lord's action and our duty which it is cited
to illustrate. There is in fact no parallel whatever between
such a Kevooerii as that which I have described and that by
which it is in our power to imitate the Lord Jesus, as we are
exhorted to do upon this principle. It is self-surrender, self-
effacement, and humiliation for the sake of others, that we
are to attempt to practise — not the limitation of our power
of helping them, but the devotion of our whole self for
them, as He devoted Himself for us.
It is, to my mind, very incidentally and not at all appro
priately that this expression is pressed into the service of
the doctrine of limitation. It does, however, illustrate it so
far as to give an instance of something which the Son of
God becoming man, for us men and for our salvation, did
give up ; who when He was rich for our sake became poor,
that we through His poverty might be rich. And so far it

150 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
does illustrate the theory of limitation, but only so far.
Nor ought it ever to be used as the keyword of a theory
with which it has so little to do : or as the decisive proof of
a doctrine which if it were intended to be taught could not
safely be left to an isolated text.
That our blessed Lord in the Incarnation did, by His
own determinate counsel, one with that of the Father and
the Holy Spirit through whom He offered Himself without
blemish, place Himself under conditions by which habit
ually he regulated the exercise of His divine power in and
through His humanity, I think is a matter of unquestioned
Catholic doctrine — an habitual self-restraint put upon the
exercise of those powers of fulness of the Godhead which
dwell in Him bodily ; a restraint upon the display of the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge which are all in Him,
hidden whilst He was with us, but never suspended or laid
aside, never dissembled or repudiated, a 7r\^pwjj.a with
which Kevwarii has no common term or element. When
ever and wherever it is said of our Lord that He could not
do this or that, or that this or that which He had with the
Father was not His own to give, the expression can cer
tainly be interpreted as meaning that such exercise of will
or power was incompatible with the conditions under which
He had placed Himself; and the same interpretation
applies to all expressions in the Gospel which imply any
change, or development of purpose, or exercise of desire
in prayer on the part of Him who is, in His divine nature,
unchangeable and beyond all limitation of foreknowledge
of will ; even to the last words of identification with us,
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
But the limitation of knowledge is a very different thing
from the limitation of the exercise of power. Power itself
has its essence in posse, its manifestation in exercise of will ;
knowledge has its essence in esse. We cannot, in our
thought, define or intelligently explain away the knowledge
of the Lord Incarnate. We cannot conceive that He could
have knowledge and not use it, as He could have power
and not exercise it; His omniscience is of the essence of the
personality in which manhood and Godhead united in Him.

HIGHER CRITICISM 151
With this belief I feel that I am bound to accept the
language of our Lord in reference to the Old Testament
Scriptures as beyond appeal. Where He says that Moses
and the Prophets wrote or spoke to Him, and the report of
His saying this depends on the authority of His Evangelist,
I accept His warrant for understanding that Moses and the
Prophets did write and speak about Him, in the sense in
which I believe that He means it. Where He speaks of
David in spirit calling Him Lord, I believe that David in
spirit did call him Lord, and I am not affected by doubts
thrown on the authorship of the i lOth Psalm, except so far
as to use His authority to set those doubts aside.
The matter is more difficult when we look at the one
passage in which the Son is understood to declare His own
ignorance of a matter which the Father hath kept in His
own power. For the inquiry as to the meaning of the words
would lead us into very high and transcendental regions,
and yet the Church has lived for nineteen centuries and
believed patiently without having them explained. The
question turns on an idea quite different from that in the
other case. It was quite within the limits of possibility for
Jesus, or indeed for any mere man, to know whether Moses
wrote Deuteronomy or David wrote any of the psalms ;
without any exercise of divine knowledge or power He
might know this by tradition, by historical evidence, by
critical or diplomatic skill. But the knowledge of the
coming of the day of the Lord, " Of that day or that hour
knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the
Son, but the Father," is a matter quite beyond us. The
words are surpassingly strong; the powers are in an ascend
ing scale — no one — not even the angels, not the Son ; as if
even the Son in His divinity, above the angels, not lower as
in His humanity, had yet something to be shown Him by
the Father, to whom He, begotten before all worlds and
being of one substance with Him, still appeals as the one
source of all being, as well as of all authority, power, and
knowledge. We do not venture to put such an interpreta
tion on the words, we would rather stand in awe and sin
not; we would veil our faces in our absolute ignorance of

152 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
the method and character of divine knowledge. For we
cannot even see how the Father's perfect knowledge of a
point, the fixedness of which would seem to limit His
divine freedom of action. His liberty to alter it, can
be reconciled with His perfect power: we cannot see
how we are to evaluate the common measure by which
the divine way of knowing, the divine power of determining,
can be compared with any way of knowing or determining
that is within our reach. We cannot see how our know
ledge, conditioned and made intelligible, possible, only
under terms of time and space, can be made to translate a
sort of knowledge in which no such terms can be supposed
to limit infinity. The words as understood by those to
whom they were spoken were a simple denial that it was
within the conditions of the work of Incarnation that the
day and hour should be revealed. To us they mean thus
much more, even the Son could not translate the Father's
determination into words or language of our knowledge.
And He does not say, "I know not"; but, as it is no function
of the Fatherhood to judge, when He has committed all
judgment unto the Son, so it is no function of the
Sonship to know that which the Father hath kept in His
own power ; as " to sit on My right hand or on My left
is not Mine to give." Although "what things soever the
Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise ; for the
Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that
Himself doeth."
The doctrine, then, of the perfect possession but habitual
restraint of His divine powers by the Son of Man during
the thirty years of His life on earth, does not allow of any
imputation of ignorance or incapacity. If such imputation
be once admitted, notwithstanding all argumentative safe
guards and compensating considerations, the great Gospel
of Grace and Salvation is touched on its keystone, and on
whomsoever it falls it shall grind him to powder. Grant it
— then, could Jesus of Nazareth forget, could He mistake,
could He become confused in argument, could He be incon
sistent in His teaching, could He be Himself mistaken?
Grant it, and what safeguard have we that He did not

LINCOLN JUDGMENT 153
forget, was not mistaken or confused or inconsistent or
Himself deceived ? We may ask no end of such questions.
If the Saviour were ignorant once, how, when, or where
does the limitation of His knowledge cease, and within
what terms, beyond that of the self-conditioning of con
stant self-restraint, does it affect the region of His media
torial work? Could our loving God — for if all else is a
mistake, there must be a true and a living God — could He
treat us so ?
I will make no apology for saying this to you. I cannot
rationalise the doctrine of the Atonement, or weigh or
analyse the blood of the covenant. I cannot draw the
articles of the everlasting covenant of the Incarnation. It
is only in a very distant way that I can fashion to myself
my idea of what my Lord has done, is doing, and will do,
as I trust, for me. I cannot read the doctrine of Incarna
tion as I could a book of Euclid, or the Bible as a poem of
Ovid or Milton. But I think that I know whom I have
believed. I would that all men could think of Him as I do;
but I cannot bear to anticipate a day when the Church
shall cry out to Jesus of Nazareth, Thou hast deceived me,
and I was deceived ; or to the unknown and unknowable.
Why didst Thou let Him deceive Himself and us ? Does
it strike you that my words are too strong ? I have indeed
run on a long way from my starting-point, but He who will
help our unbelief and increase our faith, will surely give
us grace also to observe a loving, trustful, courageous
patience until all such things are made plain, and He has
guided His own into all truth.
Lincoln Judgment
The time has come, I think, now, when I may be expected
to say a few words about what we know as the Lincoln
trial and judgment. The immediate interest and excite
ment about it is over, and men are beginning, for the most
part, to take a judicial and just estimate of its importance
and ultimate effects. I need not refer to my own connexion
with it, further than to say that it was only after a very
determined resistance to pressure from the Archbishop

154 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
that I agreed to act as an assessor in the Lambeth Court ;
the proposal came to me at a moment when I was engaged
in the removal from my northern see, and when my hands
were quite full of new work. The engagements for the
trial threw my Confirmation tour into grievous disorder, and
seriously interrupted my first attempts to gain the confi
dence of the clergy. They occasioned, moreover, such a
pressure of work and hurry as threatened for the first
months of my episcopate nothing less than a thorough
breakdown. For the help and hospitality that I had at
that trying time from all, clergy and laity, whom I had to
deal with, I can never be sufficiently grateful. Before the
pressure was quite over I was relieved from very much of
the anxiety of this part pf the matter by the consecration
of the Bishop of Reading as suffragan, a boon for which
I may honestly say that I can feel grateful even to the
exigent urgencies of the Lincoln trial.
The Lambeth trial was itself a severe demand on the
time, patience, and self-command of all concerned with it.
The details of it are still sufficiently familiar to all who
took an intelligent interest in it. Of the bitterness of
feeling which it engendered and developed I should be
glad to be able to say that it is a thing of the past ; I most
earnestly trust that the method and policy that instituted
the proceedings against such a man as the Bishop of
Lincoln, on such grounds, and by such methods, are
indeed relegated to the region of discarded weapons and
discredited expedients. I believe that the cautions ex
pressed in the last paragraph of the Archbishop's decision
are still necessary, but that good men on both sides have
seriously taken them to heart : " The Church has a right
to ask that her congregations may not be divided either
by needless pursuance or by exaggerated suspicions of
practices not in themselves illegal."
As to the material details. It will be remembered that,
from February 12th to July 24th, 1889, the Court was
employed in hearing arguments and framing a judgment
on the character of its own authority, legally and his
torically questioned. Whether a Bishop could be tried for

LINCOLN JUDGMENT 155
an offence against the Act of Uniformity, whether a Bishop
could be tried for an offence, created by modern law, by a
tribunal constituted by ancient law, the modern law not
having in any way provided for the treatment of the new
offences by any specific or definite reference to the opera
tion of the ancient law, whether the tribunal as constituted
was, in historical truth of detail, exactly such a court as
ancient church law would have recognised as primitive and
authoritative ; these questions, or points necessarily arising
upon them, were discussed with great learning and acute
ness by most able and experienced advocates. The Arch
bishop, with whom, constitutionally, on this occasion (by
himself and without the necessary co-operation of assessors)
the decision on this point of jurisdiction devolved, gave
most serious attention to the arguments, and pronounced
a judgment which, although it could hardly have been,
in the circumstances, other than it was, was a model of
lucidity and exhaustiveness. Neither its lucidity, how
ever, nor its exhaustiveness saved it from severe criticism.
There was an immediate rush to the Corpus furis Canonici
and the text-books. From these stores of illustration
theories were erected, and from the same stores were
drawn the implements of demolition. A man's orthodoxy.
especially a Bishop's, was determined according as he
happened to agree or to disagree with the conclusions,
which a first investigation of the sources (I had almost
written the sortes) of the Canon Law impressed on the
fresh student. Even now the question, how a peccant
Bishop can be canonically tried, is a matter over which
many battles may be fought. Most happily our own
Church history has furnished, at any period, an infinite
simal stock of precedents. That this state of things may
continue is a matter of most earnest hope, and a fit object
for prayer also: that our Great Head, our Saviour, the
Prince of Peace, will so guide the minds and hearts of
those, who, by His grace, are called to the perilous work
of the pastorate, that they may not in word or deed, in
self-discipline, or in the discipline of others, be brought
into the position of offenders against the law which.

156 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
whether it be spiritual or temporal law, sustains their
moral power and justifies whilst it enforces their practical
jurisdiction. I may just add that the adaptation of pro
ceedings on the basis of ancient law to offences against
modern Church law is as yet not so easy a matter as
it seems to despatch off-hand. If, before the Reformation,
Bishops were the sole judges (within certain very general
laws) of the details of ritual, the offence as against the
Act of Uniformity was not within the distinct contempla
tion of the law then in force, which law was the only law
on which the Lambeth Court could base its authority. The
practical point was whether such an ancient court could
take cognisance of a new offence not distinctly referred to
it by new legislation. The decision practically came to
the determination that it could.
The arguments on the merits of the case were carried
on during the remainder of 1889, and the Archbishop's
judgment, framed with the advice of his assessors, was
given on November 21st, 1890. Against the decision an
appeal was laid before the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council, and that tribunal on August 2nd, 1892,
gave its reasons for advising the Queen on the whole case
as treated by the Archbishop ; for the most part confirm
ing the judgment of the Lambeth Court.
A word or two on the several points will be more than
sufficient. I have no doubt that all of you have made
up your minds one way or another about them. I will take
them in order, mainly, however, with a view to point out the
way in which, as I think, they have lessons in them for future
guidance, and so far as they are illustrative of movements
and notions which we may be called on, as years advance,
to deal with equitably, reasonably, and considerately. I
think also that you have a right to know what, irrespective
of the particular circumstances of the Lincoln case, the
attitude of your Bishop has been with regard to them.
Mixed Chalice.
The first article was that on the Mixed Chalice; the
mixing of water with wine in the Holy Eucharist, and the

ABLUTIONS 157
consecration and administration of the mixed cup. Upon
this the Archbishop's decision, accepted by the Judicial
Committee, came to this, that the use of the mixed chalice
is not unlawful, but that the mixing of it must not be
made a ceremonial part of the divine service. It would
not have been difficult, I think, to have gone further, and
urged that the use of the mixed cup has even a higher
sanction than that of the unmixed, in the use of primitive
antiquity and almost universal usage. Nor, I imagine, would
it have been irregular to urge that the rubrical words, " it
shall suffice," applied to the element of bread, at a time
when not only the bread usual to be eaten, but the wafer
bread also, was still in use in our churches, might with
a just analogy be applied to the other element ; in other
words, that " it shall suffice " implied the minimum rather
than the maximum of requirements. These points, how
ever, were not circumstantially raised, and the judge was
not called upon so much to expound the whole question
as to determine for or against the cogency of the charge in
the case. I commend, then, this point carefully to your
conscientious acceptance. Let those clergy who regard
the observance of the ancient custom as of great import
ance, observe it under the conditions which the Archbishop's
exposition contains. Let those who do not regard it as
important abstain from exaggerations as to the meaning
of the custom and suspicion against those who differ from
them. To the great majority of sound Churchmen to
whom the point is entirely subordinate to the infinitely
greater matter of the continual remembrance of the sacrifice
of the death of Christ and the strengthening and refreshing
of their souls by His body and blood, quarrels and bitterness,
disputation of upon this, as upon several of the other points
of the judgment, are simply matters of wondering and sor
rowing apprehension.
Ablutions. The next point is that of the Ablutions. On this the
decisions move without any hesitation. We are to consume
reverently what is left of the consecrated elements, and the

158 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
cleansing of the vessels appears to be a not improper com
pletion of the act ; which act is immediately to follow the
blessing. It would seem that it should suffice for this to
be done before leaving the Holy Table, or at the credence,
or even in the vestry. The judgment suggests the cre
dence : I would advise that nothing, except the final putting
away of the cleansed vessels, should be left to the vestry ;
certainly the consumption of the remainder of the elements
should not. But without laying down any rule for the
method of consuming the last drops in the cup or the last
crumbs on the paten, I would urge that it should be done
as quickly as the word " reverently " admits. The service
is already long enough, and a great many devout people,
having completed their act of communion, are tempted
to impatience at the tedious semi-ceremonial that in some
of our churches follows before the priest quits the sanctuary.
It is better that the congregation should wait until he has
quitted it, and should not be puzzled, or made suspicious
or weary, by the length of an operation in which they
themselves have no part. This caution, which may, I fear,
be unwelcome to some of my younger friends, seems to
me to be by no means unnecessary in reference to other
adjuncts and auxiliaries of divine service. There is a
mediaeval sentiment which often occurs to me in respect
to this: Spiritus sanctus nescit tarda m.olimina; I recog
nise no special sanctity in that which inspires irresistible
tedium. Eastward Position.
The fourth and fifth of the articles concerned what is
known familiarly, too familiarly, as the Eastward Position;
the position of the priest at the Lord's Table before and
during the prayer of consecration, and the securing, where
this position is adopted, that the manual acts of the con
secration be done before the people. It was determined
that practically there is a liberty for the clergyman to take
the questioned position, as well as liberty to take a position
at the north end of the table and look southwards; and
that, provided the manual act of breaking bread before the

EASTWARD POSITION 159
people and taking the cup into his hands be performed
according to the rubric, the position before the table is
lawful during the consecration.
I do not know that the treatment of these articles requires
comment, but I will say a word or two now in reference to
my own conduct in the matter, which has been sometimes
impugned with severe comment, owing to a circumstance
which took place when I was Bishop of Chester. I apolo
gise, if you think that this is a matter of mere personal
interest. I have, ever since my ordination in 1848, used
the eastward position in the Ante-Communion, and since
I was ordained priest in 1850, at the consecration prayer.
I believe that I adopted it, as many young clergymen did
at the time, not so much because we thought that there
was very much precedent in the existing state of ritual as
because we thought that the best attitude of prayer to God
was not the attitude of the face turned to the people, and
we were vexed with the sight of the clergyman lolling with
his arms on a great table-cushion and hitching the sacred
vessels about at the full length of his arms, long or short,
during the most solemn parts of the service. It also seemed
to us, as the judgment has justified us in holding, that it
was not out of accord with the rubric. It was certainly
not until long after the dates I have mentioned that I heard
of any complaint about it as tending to illustrate a sus
pected tendency towards a really dangerous doctrine. Of
course, everything that was apparently new was called
Roman then, but there was nothing more Roman in this
than in preaching in a surplice or saying the prayer for
the Church Militant. One or two people objected to the
clergyman, as they said, turning his back to the people ;
but one or two people object to anything; and serious
objection was raised only later, when views, more pro
nounced perhaps than were acceptable, began to assert
themselves, and when, I may say confidently, more just
and reverent practice at the Holy Sacrament began ex
tensively to be observed. It was not, however, until 1884,
that the matter had for me any more special interest than
was involved in my own personal consistency. When I

160 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
went to Chester I knew that I had, in my very dear and
old friend. Dean Howson, a neighbour who took the con
trary view, and had committed himself very strongly to it.
As soon as I had accepted the see, long before I was con
secrated, I began to correspond with him about it. I
claimed my liberty, but I did not assert any authority
or lay down a rule for anyone else. He very naturally
disliked the introduction of what he thought a new and
wrong custom into his and my Cathedral Church. It so
happened that, owing to circumstances quite unconnected
with this matter, I did not celebrate in the Cathedral until
I had been Bishop for several months ; and, when I did
celebrate, I did so as I had done for thirty-four years and
as I meant to do, and still mean to do, because I believe
it to be the right way. The Dean made a protest and
circulated it. We never for one moment had anything
like a personal grievance in reference to it. I did what I
thought my duty, and he knew it; he did what he thought
was his, and I knew it. But although, as I have said, we
had been exchanging letters about this for six months
before, and the difference of opinion was very well known,
and the Dean's protest was actually circulated before my
act was done, the religious newspapers represented me as
having sprung an unkind surprise upon my friend, and
indeed rather as having gone beyond my right in doing
what I had done in my own Cathedral. With those people
who believe what they read in religious newspapers, I
believe that I still labour under this stigma. I did not
think that it was for me to contradict it; but to you per
haps I may now owe it that you should not be led to
misapprehend my attitude or history on a matter to which
the Lincoln trial has certainly given a more prominent
interest than it had before. I apologise beforehand to
those who think that I have said too much about myself
Well, as to the matter itself, I rest it on first principles
of worship and on a fair interpretation of the rubrics. I
think that, when we are speaking to the people, we should
turn to the people, and when we are speaking to God for
the people, we should turn the way that the people turn.

EASTWARD POSITION 161
I understand "before the table" to mean in front of it;
the north side, as historically interpreted, has some distinct
difficulties, the form having been introduced when the
table was set lengthwise, and in its natural application
standing or falling with that usage. I think that, as the
rubric stands, the letter is satisfied by the adoption of a
position north from the centre of the table. I am not sure
that, until the Collect comes, the ritual idea would not be
satisfied by any position on the north side of the sacrarium :
but I do not wish to suggest anything. I protest, however,
most strongly against having the principle that I think
makes things clear, being traversed by a custom which I
see occasionally adopted, of reading the offertory sentences,
and other portions of service obviously intended to be
addressed to the congregation, by a clergyman looking
away from them.
The one point that arises on this, that is of any special
complexity, is the apparent difficulty of reconciling the
eastward position at consecration with the performance of
the manual acts before the people. As to this I may con
fess that I should myself have been inclined to understand
the rubrical words, " before the people," as satisfied by the
acts being all done before the congregation, and with no
affectation of secrecy or ritual mystery. The Court, how
ever, and I as a member of it, did think it just to be on
the safer side, and believed that it was more thoroughly
in harmony with the general intention of the service as
reformed, that it should interpret it as it did. So the
manual acts of breaking the bread and of holding the cup
should be done so that they who are willing to see them
should see them. And I see no reason why this cannot
be done easily — either by the minister setting the paten
and the cup a little to his right, so that he may break the
bread on the paten as it stands, and hold the cup as it
stands : or, as I have myself been used to do, turning to
the congregation and holding the paten in the left hand,
whilst I break the bread with the right hand, then showing
the cup in my hand to the people before I lay my hand
upon it. I am quite prepared to be told that in doing this
M

162 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
I am acting against the law of ritual, or even against the
Canon Law, but I am a little hardened against the judg
ment of those who, whilst accustoming themselves, and
assuming to be, a Canon Law to themselves, solve all
questions in their own way. There is no difficulty in
doing what is to be done reverently and devoutly; but
it is a very disagreeable thing to have to do anything
reverently and devoutly, when at the time one is forced
to observe that indecent curiosity rather than devotion is
the prevailing feeling with some of those to whom one
is called on to minister. It is a discomfort and a harass,
but it must be borne until people have learned to behave
better ; and we shall not teach them to behave better by
crotchetiness and perversity in ceremonial detail. With
you, surely, there can be no need for me to protest solemnly
and most strongly against the reprisal measure of moving
the Lord's Table and setting it lengthwise, which has been
unhappily advocated and adopted in a few churches where
the discerning of the Lord's Body must be understood to
be an idea of very little import.
Agnus Dei.
The sixth article concerns the singing of the Agnus Dei,
as it is called, after the consecration. I confess that I
think that the objection to this is altogether unreasonable
on the grounds stated in the judgment, and that the fact
of the omission of the words in the second Prayer Book
of Edward VI., after the introduction of them in the first
Prayer Book, is a very insufficient reason for the applica
tion of a principle of " omission is prohibition," a principle
which seems to me to be based on the authority of the
unprofitable servant in the parable of the talents. Surely
there is no question, in any of the Christian communities,
of the connexion between the Sacrament and the sacrifice
of the death of Christ, however wide may be the diver
gencies of the communities as to the exact terms of the
connexion. And to no one who receives the Sacrament
can it be a really strange or foreign idea to welcome the
participation with the words in question. The other day

LIGHTS 163
I picked up a little book. The Pious Parishioner, printed
in the reign of George II., a little manual for the Holy
Communion, neither nonjuring nor Methodistical, as
Methodism then was, and very highly Hanoverian, in
which this very form is put into the mouth of the faithful
receiver, to be said in his heart as soon as he has received.
Whilst I am speaking of this, I will just for a moment
digress to an illustrative circumstance of a trial at eccle
siastical law which took place in 1820 before Mr. Granville
Vernon, the Chancellor and official principal of the Arch
bishop of York. It was about the lawfulness of singing
metrical psalms and hymns in church. Mr. Vernon gave
a long, a learned, and by no means sympathetic judgment.
He went into the law and the history of the thing, and
went against it. There was not authority for it, and with
the lack of authority the practice could not be upheld : in
fact, although he did not say so, omission was prohibition.
But the judge was a wise man, and did not believe that
the suit was instituted for the elucidation, assertion, or
enforcement of the law, and accordingly, although his
judgment was clear, he would issue no monition and give
no costs. His words were, " I feel that the promoters of
these articles were fairly entitled to a decision of the legal
question to the best of my judgment ; but if they proceed
to call for sentence in this cause and decline the mediation
which I before suggested, I shall consider them as wanting
not only in a sense of their own interest, but in a regard
to Christian charity and practical religion." I imagine
that in the province of York there was little more heard
of the illegality of metrical psalms ; and I think that
Mr. Vernon's practical decision set us a precedent that is
beyond praise, in cases quite different from that in which
he made it.
Lights. We come next to the question of Lights — a question on
which more anxiety was felt by a large number of people
who liked the lights than on any of the other counts ;
and on which, as it turns out, the judgment of the courts

164 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
is less comprehensive and less cogent than it is on any
other. You are aware that no formal decision was in
question as to the use of lights ; but, whilst the matter
was discussed in the Archbishop's decision in such a way
as to suggest the conclusion that lights were not in them
selves unlawful, although the lighting of the candles during
the service would be probably regarded as an unlawful
ceremony, it was not determined that they were under
any circumstances lawful during daylight. The ultimate
decision merely exonerated the Bishop of Lincoln from
any responsibility for what was, in this matter, done in
his presence without any personal action on his part.
And so that matter rests, and will, I hope, be allowed
to rest. The use of the lights is an ancient and, to my
mind, an illustrative and edifying use. No one has ever
thought of imposing it as a rule on people who do not
like it. There are many churches in which at the early
services it is almost a necessity, but such necessity ought
not to be pleaded as an argument for a practice which is
adopted mainly for other reasons. Personally I do not
care about it, being constitutionally not particularly appre
ciative of such adjuncts of divine worship, and perhaps
being rather likely to be disturbed than edified by a diver
gence from what I have been accustomed to. In fact,
however, except when I am celebrating myself, I do not
much notice lights. But this is not a time for ventilating
one's likes or dislikes. The question of lights is not, as
I said, decided in any definite or ultimate way. If omission
is prohibition on the one side, on the other the omission of
prohibition may be pleaded as a permission : I do not like
to have people playing with such edged tools. Certainly
there are many questions which it is much the safest
neither to ask nor to answer.
Sign of the Cross.
The last articles concern the use of the Sign of the Cross
in Absolution and Benediction. This the Archbishop
decided was an innovation which must be discontinued.
The grounds upon which he based the decision, which was

SIGN OF THE CROSS 165
held good by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,
involved some assertions of principle which seem to me of
more importance than the decision itself, especially with
reference to the idea of innovation and restoration of
practices omitted, or supposed to be omitted, in our service
books, from earlier or presumed earlier usage. In what
I am going to say about some other points connected with
this subject, I shall probably recur to these. As to the
meaning of the sign of the Cross under the circumstances
which led to the discussion, I confess that I am by no
means so clear as I could wish to be, nor do I quite realise
what the manual act was that was objected to. Both
parties, however, seem to have understood it alike. I can
only suspect that less well-informed ritualists may occa
sionally drift into such acts without being aware of it. It
is very sad, indeed, that such a thing as the sign of the
Cross should ever be brought into litigation ; but the
historical grounds of the difference of opinion are too
obvious, and too deep also, to be regarded as unimportant.
If the king of Judah was warranted in destroying the
brazen serpent that Moses had made, surely we are not
justified in making the sign of our redemption a stumbling-
block in the way of those who associate it with ideas and
practices which we, as well as they, are bound to repudiate.
They may be very wrong, but that does not make it right
for us to bring the Cross under blasphemy.
So, then, matters stand at present. I cannot attempt
any augury for the future, although I am sure that your
hopes and prayers are with mine for peace, and tolerant
effort for the two contending parties to understand one
another. It is most especially grievous that the matter
about which the storm has for three centuries raged most
tempestuously should have been the Holy Sacrament,
which is, on the one side, the great exponent of the doctrine
of the Atonement, and, on the other, the symbol and mystery
of the unity of the body. Surely both sides might now
rid themselves of the associations which the memories of
a litigious past have so long burdened them with ; associa
tions which are very largely traceable, historically and

166 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
sentimentally, to practices, exactions, superstitions, impos
tures, exaggerations, and depravations, which they, against
whom the memory of such things is made to tell, would
most sincerely reprobate. God grant us some end to these
divisions of heart. There are men on both sides, as we see
from time to time, really earnest in seeking peace : there
are still some bent upon aggravating differences. It has
always been so, and must be so, I imagine, so long as
men's views of proportion in things spiritual differ as they
do now ; neither study nor religious earnestness seems to
abate the difficulty ; and in the meanwhile many are
driven into a sceptic attitude that will not attempt to
solve questions which study and religious earnestness
have led them to state on principles of diametrical con
tradiction. Restoration of Old Customs.
It seems natural to follow up what I have been saying
about ritual matters with some cautions and counsels,
will strike you, perhaps, rather as personal, the result
of personal likings or dislikings, rather than as official and
ex cathedra pronouncements. I must fall back on what
I have said in the opening of this charge.
First, then, as to the restoration of old customs which,
having been either locally or generally lost sight of, it
seems edifying to recur to wherever it can be done without
giving offence. I put this first among my cautions because
of what I have just been saying about the sign of the
Cross. We have seen, within the last fifty- years, many
restorations to edification, the restored use of the surplice,
the extended adoption of choral services, the turning to the
east at the Creed, even the bowing at the most sacred
name, the developed use of the offertory, the great ex
tension of metrical hymnody ; — many other things that
to this generation are matters of course, we remember
to have been matters of contention — continuity in some
cases being difficult to prove, and disuse having become
locally the rule. Now for the general restoration of such
things there ought to be pleaded, not merely local con-

RESTORATION OF OLD CUSTOMS 167
tinuities, but inherent reasonableness: such inherent reason
ableness was, I think, to be pleaded for all the things that
I have mentioned, as well as for the eastward position at
the Lord's Table. But such inherent usefulness, and local
continuity, cannot be pleaded for some of the practices
which occasionally we come across in churches ; and which
I mention now, not so much because I find them in the
churches of my own diocese, as because, owing to the rapid
circulation of younger clergymen from diocese to diocese,
there is a tendency to introduce new fashions generally.
The matters which I mention first are small ; they are such
things as the multiplied genuflexions or even prostrations
used in approaching the Lord's Table for communion ; the
lowering of the voice to a whisper in the pronouncing of
the articles in the creeds that touch the Incarnation ;
the turning the back to the people whilst the offertory
sentences are being said, and even, as I hear is occasionally
done, whilst the Gospel is read ; and this last is not a small
thing. There are other points which I need not mention,
as they may be very local indeed. Those which I have
mentioned are such as I think can plead very little con
tinuity, if any, and no inherent reasonableness. They are
not English, or in accord with that attitude as touching
the verities of the faith that is characteristic of Christian
manliness. Second, I will put practices which, although small in
themselves, have as it seems to me an unhappy effect in
divine service. I mean the length of the private prayers
which the priest celebrating uses ; for his own edifica
tion, no doubt, but rather to the undue lengthening of
the service and to the weariness of the communicants.
And with this is indirectly connected the use of forms
printed on altar cards, which seem to me to be in danger
of becoming an unauthorised and, indeed, unwarranted
intrusion into the due order of the Church. I am afraid
that I may shock some of you in speaking of these
things now; but I am not going to lay a burden upon
anyone.

168 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
Private Devotions at Public Services.
The service of Holy Communion is quite long enough
for anyone who has not a very well disciplined and sus
tained power of keeping his mind fixed on a spiritual act.
The fact is patent to our experience, and it is a fact which
is a growing consideration in days in which we have got
into the way of doing things generally much more rapidly
than we used to do. We know how, within a limit of
years that the younger clergy can realise, we have had to
sever the celebration of the Holy Communion from the
Morning Prayers and Litany, and how, practically, the
Communion service is shortened by the omission of the
longer exhortation, and sometimes, however unwarrant
ably, of the Ten Commandments and prayer for the Queen :
and some of us know also how, in the case of very large
Communions, frequent application is made for the relaxa
tion of the rule of speaking the words of administration
to each communicant. Now I do not think that this is the
result of any desire in the congregations to withdraw any
portion from the time given on Sundays to divine worship.
I believe it to be owing to the fact that in all things of the
kind we are coming to more prompt and rapid action.
Boys do not love their parents less because they write very
short letters from school instead of the very long ones they
used to write. The sound man of business tries to say
what he has to say on the first page of his letters. All
matters of function, lay as well as ecclesiastical, are simpli
fied and shortened ; and the weariness of detail is abridged
both in church and office. What is done is not less well
done because it is attempted, as the elections of Bishops
used to be, " Una voce et una inspiratione." If the priest
at the Lord's Table lengthens his private devotions to the
wearying of his people, he is not acting wisely or thought
fully. There should be no hurry, there should be no
tedium : sometimes there are both.
It may be said, let the communicants have private devo
tions as well as the priest, then there can be no tedium ;
and there are abundant materials in the manuals for the
use of communicants that are very edifying in the use.

NON-COMMUNICATING ATTENDANCE 169
But upon the use of such manuals there is always this
drawback, that they tend to divert the minds of those who
use them from the act of united worship, and so reduce the
celebration to a ceremony which belongs to the priest alone.
We find extreme cases of this in foreign churches, where
we see the ordinary worshipper busy with his Prayer Book
quite irrespective of what is going on at the altar. There
may be an edifying side to this, probably there is, but it is
not consistent with the idea of joint acts of worship, least
of all with a real partaking in the highest of such acts.
The proper use of the private manuals by the congregation
is to fill up the unavoidable periods of waiting, either whilst
the table is being arranged or whilst the communicants are
receiving. I conclude that the service as we have it in our
Prayer Books involves a spiritual effort quite sufficient for
the capacity of the ordinary worshipper, and that it is best
done where the effort is sustained without break. I add
that in these circumstances the priest is bound to consider
the congregation even before himself ; to make his prepara
tion beforehand and not to prolong the waiting of the
people whilst he prays. The use of the altar cards, which
contain only the forms of our Liturgy, or such short
ejaculatory thoughts as the celebrant may well carry
through the merely mechanical process of preparing the
table, are lawful and useful ; but I cannot speak too
strongly in condemnation of the use of such adjuncts,
when they prescribe supplementary acts of ceremonial or
additional prayers, conceived and expressed as they some
times are in language distinctly discordant with the due
order of the Church, with the reasonable and harmonious
continuity of the liturgical service.
Non-communicating Attendance.
I do not propose now to speak of non-communicating
attendance : I must, however, mention the case in which
the priest is sometimes obliged either to celebrate without
the regular number of communicants or to discontinue the
celebration after he has begun it. Where there is a purpose
to celebrate without communicants at all, only spectators.

170 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
I think that words of condemnation can scarcely be too
strong. Three communicants are required by the rubric
at least.
There is no rule that does not admit of exception ;
accident may prevent one of three intending communi
cants from approaching the table at the moment ; the
celebration has gone too far, the consecration is completed.
The exception must be allowed. But provision ought to
be made to preclude the necessity of such exception ; it
must be a very small parish in which the communicants
are so few that only three can be relied on at the regular
celebration ; or the clergyman must either have lost his
hold on them or multiplied celebrations to an extent that
gives occasion for the defeasance. Such cases, however,
must be uncommon, and do not call for any particular
animadversion ; let proper care be taken that there be a
sufficient number present ; if accidents occur to make the
keeping of the rule impossible, the circumstances amount
to justification.
I am afraid that I cannot justify in anj' such way any
evasion of the rule of the Church which would warrant
reservation for the use of the sick, or others outside the
Church, to whom the elements might be taken immediately
after or even during the service in Church. Something
might no doubt be said for the reasonableness of such
indulgence, but it is against the letter of the Prayer Book,
as I read it, unmistakably.
Evening Communions.
I have left to the last the two burning questions. Even
ing Communion and Fasting Communion. I will be brief
and cautious about both, for I have no wish to wound any
susceptibilities, or to lay down propositions which are
unpractical. In my own attitude to the practice of even
ing Communion I have followed, in the diocese of Chester,
the example of my illustrious predecessor. Bishop Jacob-
son, and in this diocese that of Bishops Wilberforce and
Mackarness. But I have laid down no rule, nor attempted
to enforce any change on practices which I found recog-

EVENING COMMUNIONS 171
nised or established. It would have been neither useful
nor expedient to attempt to enforce such change even if I
had wished it. But I have never concealed or thought
of concealing from the clergy that I do not approve of
evening Communion ; and that any clergyman who intro
duces it where it has not been used before does so in
disregard of my express advice. I repeat the words which
I said at Chester in repect to this : " I am not disposed to
set forth injunctions which will not be obeyed, or to offer
recommendations which will not be adopted ; neither am I
going to censure those clergymen whose position and
exigencies seem to themselves a justification for continu
ing the practice. But I must distinctly say that any
clergyman who shall hereafter introduce evening Com
munions into his Church will do it in direct opposition
to my deliberate opinion." As to the argumentative
aspects of the case, I will not go into detail : the Com
mittee of the Convocation of Canterbury will probably
very shortly issue its report on this as well as on the
question of fasting Communion. Only I will say that I do
not think that the fact of our Lord's instituting the sacra
ment in the evening has the slightest bearing on the
question as it now presents itself; that I believe with the
best authorities that the practice of the Church from the
fourth century onwards should be our rule as regards
the special point of evening celebration ; that I think that
the communicant will be very much more likely to benefit
by a communion which he makes an effort to attend than
by one that is adapted to minister to his convenience at
the end of the day ; and that my strongest feelings are
called into action by the fact that these evening Com
munions are being forced, as a party measure of reprisal or
compensation, by people who regard the recent judgment
on the Lincoln case as a concession to the Church party
which they are opposing. Such measures of reaction and
reprisal carry their own moral refutation with them. I
must honestly add that I very much fear that, both
before this and now, the most prominent advocates of
the practice are to be found amongst those who would

172 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
avowedly depress the doctrine and practice of our Church
to the level of opinions which Articles, Liturgy, and
Catechism, distinctly repudiate. I do not wish to include
in this general censure any clergyman whose course, as
it seems to him, is clearly dictated by the circumstances of
his flock. The controversial treatment of it is, I think,
most profane, and absolutely unwarrantable, either by
considerations of law, history, general reasonableness, or
pious economy.
Fasting Communion.
The practice of fasting Communion, that is of going
to Communion before any of the meals of the day, is also
a question about which, owing to the way in which it
is pressed as a rigorous rule, there are just now great
searchings of heart. This also is before a Committee
of Convocation, in consequence of a memorial from the
Lower House headed by the names of Bishop Mitchinson
and other faithful men whom we know well. I do not
intend to speak now on the controversial points involved
in this question ; for it is certain to my mind that where it
can be arranged so, it is best for us all to go to the sacra
ment early, before the cares even of a Sabbath Sunday
begin, and accordingly before any meal. I cannot per
suade myself that the mere fact of being in a fasting
condition can have any effect on a spiritual reception,
although, of course, the reverse does not hold. But when
I am told that to go to Communion not fasting is a sin, or
even a deadly sin ; that to induce your parishioners to
attend a midday Communion, before which they have
broken their fast, is to lead them into sin, I decline alto
gether to accept such law, or any law which creates new
sins of the kind. It is a wholesome rule, a mos pro lege, if
you like, which recommends or prescribes fasting Com
munion ; but to enforce such a practice with such sanctions,
is not in accordance with the true conception of religious
law, or with the spirit of the Gospel itself. Nor is the
promulgation of such a sanction — if you communicate
otherwise than fasting you are committing wilful sin —

DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 173
reconcilable with the loyalty that all of us alike owe to the
Church, of which we are the ministers.
I will just add that, when I am asked, as I sometimes am,
by young clergymen to dispense them from the rule of
fasting in this connexion, I am quite willing to give them
such counsel, comfort, and latitude of action as they may
think it in my power to give, or I can express in words that
do not claim for me a power which I am not at all sure
rests with me. But I cannot take on myself to dispense
with any law that is of universal obligation, either by public
document or by private indulgence. I cannot make lawful
in Lent things which are not lawful in Lent, nor indeed can
I always reconcile the idea of dispensation which my friends
the applicants hold, with any practical jurisdiction belong
ing to my office. Still, as I said, my counsel and sympathy
are at the service of all who come to me in good faith and
with honest questionings : that may well be enough.
Disestablishment and Disendowment.
We are brought now, and that rather suddenly, to face
the greatest problem of modern Society in the relation of
Church and State. Suddenly, I mean, because, although
the question of disestablishment in many phases has been
before us for many years, the Welsh Suspensory Bill has
put a point to the front which is distinctly and immediately
urgent, and has done so in a way that admits of no disguise
as to its intention, or misapprehension as to its results. It
means, whatever else it means, disestablishment for the
whole Church of England, sooner or later, wholesale or
piecemeal, but pure and simple. And such an attack
involves the need of a defence all round ; not merely
political or moral or ecclesiastical ; not merely speculative
and theoretical, merely argumentative or academic; or
merely practical ; not only on the grounds of authority,
history, and sentiment, not only on the grounds of ex
pediency and economy, not only on general or only on
particular and local arguments ; it must be a defence all
round. This defence is a very large subject, and I cannot
pretend to deal with it in one section or even in two sections

174 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
of a charge. But I am bound to deal with it : and if I do
it at too great length for the occasion, or in such detached
sections as may seem, each by itself, to lack unity and con
nexion, I must trust the clergy to consider the several
sections as a whole; or, if they will not do that, to
endeavour to try to gather from the particular one to which
they may listen, some hints on principles, arguments, and
methods, such as one independent thinker may wisely
condescend to borrow from another.
You may remember that when, eight years ago, a dis
establishment attack seemed imminent, and the Church
Defence Institution set to work in earnest to promote
defensive work, the Church, both as a spiritual body and
as a national institution, was assailed on both sides of pro
jected attack and projected reconstruction. Sound teaching
on both these phases was started and with good effect, and
both by the circulation of papers, and by the agency of
illustrative lectures, great efforts were and have been since
continously made, to bring before all classes of our people
the truth of the History of our Church. The lines on
which this defence is conducted are excellent, and under
other circumstances I might almost be inclined to throw
myself on the materials that that organisation furnishes ;
but it appears to me now most necessary that we should
review and realise the situation, each clergyman, each
Christian Englishman for himself, and renew and refresh
his knowledge of the arguments on which so much
depends. Matters have moreover changed somewhat
since 1886 ; we hear less of reconstruction, but more of
demolition. It is a curious thing, not unprecedented, that we have at
the same moment advancing upon us, not I believe with
any conscious concert, but yet in a way that tends to
disturb the faith of some in the strength of our cause,
detachments from the Roman as well as from what I will,
using a name of which I believe the party I mean is proud
and content to inherit it, call the Puritan party. On both
sides our character as an historic institution and a spiritual
body is called in question : our Church order and govern-

THE CHURCH 175
ment, our orders of ministry, our doctrinal teaching, our
relations to the Catholic Church and the English nation,
our historic claim to be the national Church, and the
efficacy of our moral and spiritual work. The Roman
attacks on our succession, on our constitutional position and
on our rights, move of course on quite different theories and
principles from those of the Puritans, but the denials are
still denials, and the minds that are shaken on the one side
are not fortified by being shaken on the other. There are
signs of large and ostentatious claims to be made just now
by Rome, and there are clever and ingenious, candidly
ingenious methods of suggesting doubts and questions to
men who ought to be more informed than mere contro
versial reading can ever make them, which I confess give
me personally much trouble. Not only has this side of
things been vigorously pressed, but the great publicity and
public interest with which the recent changes in the Roman
hierarchy have been viewed, the prominence assigned in the
papers to Roman ceremonials and the utterances of Roman
leaders have, to some extent, stimulated feeling and inquiry
in controversial directions. Some points of this character
I may have to recur to, but now I dismiss them that we
may review our position on the greater questions.
Terminology. We begin by asking ourselves what do we mean by the
terms we use? What do we mean by Church, State,
National Church, Establishment, Endowment, Reforma
tion, Liberation, or at least some of them ? What is the
Church, our Church, our national Church ?
(o) The Church,
Well — begin at the beginning; begin with the article
of the Creed : the one. Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.
What do I believe about it or mean by it ? I believe that
our Lord founded, and by His Holy Spirit, through the
agency of His apostles, organised a body of believers, to
which He gave a corporate constitution and spiritual life.
This, His own mystical body, I believe, is to abide for ever

176 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
and to gather in all nations ; and I believe it to possess, in
His contemplation and purpose, a unity and a holiness
which to me are a matter of Faith ; and a catholic and
apostolic character which may be tested by history and
experience. The unity, as a matter of faith, I believe to
exist in the determinate purpose implied in our Lord's
own prayer that all may be one ; and I also believe that
Almighty God, seeing not as we see, has regard to the
unity of faith and service, in communities and individuals
that do not see such unity or even try to feel it themselves ;
having a good purpose that one day it shall be fully
manifested. The holiness, as a matter of faith, I believe
to exist in His sanctification and consecration of the body
of the faithful, whom He is leading on, individually and
collectively, to a like consummation. The unity and
holiness I believe to subsist, notwithstanding the divisions
and unworthiness of individual members and sections, and
even in spite of their unconsciousness or even repudiation
of the idea ; for the Church is an institution working in
the world, and administered by men who have no im
munity either for themselves or for their methods from the
trials to which all other institutions are liable. The
catholicity and apostolicity of the Church I believe to be
matter of theological and historical proof: and I would
work to vindicate the claim involved in this, to apostolic
orthodoxy in doctrine, continuity in holy orders and
historic authority in government and rites: although I
would do it constructively and not litigiously, without
attempting to make such definitions as would seem to limit
the action of divine grace through agencies which do not
possess these characteristics. Even if they say that they
are not of the body, I would leave it to the great Head to
determine whether it is so or not.
(A) The Church of England.
Next, what is the Church of England? The Church
of England I hold to be a portion of this Holy Catholic,
Apostolic, One Church, which is the presentation, and
contact of the same, to us and our nation and country ;

THE NATION 177
and in which we and our fellow-Churchmen realise our own
condition as members of the mystical body of the Lord.
I believe that I am justified in this by the evidence which
I have of the continuity of faith, of apostolic order and
succession, of ministry and service, and I am desirous to
uphold my belief, notwithstanding the claims and assump
tions of attacking parties, Roman or Puritan. We un
church no one, so far as I can see, but claim and hold fast
what we have received. We can even see that those who
declare that they are not of the body, are in the sight of
the Lord other than their words would suggest : but now
we are asserting our own claim.
The Church of England is the national Church : the
institution or community or body, whose continuous work
has been the conversion of the nation, its organisation for
the maintenance of Christian belief and practice ; the
preservation and translation of the Scriptures ; its share
in the work of civilisation, education, and philanthropic
enterprise ; as well as in the exercise of moral influence
towards order, peace, and national progress : — and this all
working in and through the direct bearing of teaching and
discipline on individuals, as the contact of the mystical
body of the Lord, and the realised presentment to them
of the Holy Catholic Church.
Now what do we mean by the nation and the State ?
(c) The Nation.
By the nation we mean our people as a whole, in the
several stages of their growth, and now in their full growth
and integrity. I do not disregard the variety of origins
out of which a nationality has constituted itself There is
a sense in which the United Kingdom is a nationality, but
it is a secondary sense : on the other hand Scotland is a
nation, although anciently Alban, Dalriada, and Strath-
clyde were three varieties of race and history; and
England is a nation, although once the Teutonic element
was ranged in seven kingdoms and the Celtic elements in
two or three more. The nation has grown up as one and
is one ; and it will be a grievous thing if ever the cleavage
N

178 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
of ancient tribalism is allowed to regain, even in sentiment,
its disruptive force. The Church of England is the
Church of the nation of England.
(d) The State.
But what is the State? for now it is not so much
primarily the relation of the Church to the nation as its
relation to the State that is in question ; at least the points
ought not to be confounded. The State, properly, is the
nation in its constitutional organisation for its own well-
being as a secular unity : for national action, administra
tion, policy, self-preservation, and intercourse with other
states and nations. It is the res publico, the common
wealth in its temporal or secular aspect as organised. The
word is not identical in meaning with the word nation,
although the two may be co-extensive in actual member
ship and composition. A nation has its character, its
property, its history, its sentiments, in a sense in which the
State has not, or at all events not the same. The clergy
for instance are ministers of the nation, not ministers of
the State : the property of all public bodies may be
regarded as national property or public property, but it is
not the property of the State ; and Church property itself,
and indeed all property which the action of the law
secures to its owners, may be and is sometimes called
national property, as we well know, although I am not
aware that either expression is warranted by the strict
language of English law ; but it is not the property of
the State. We must leave to the lawyers the determina
tion of the distinctions between public, national, and State
property, and guard ourselves against the confusion, so
often wilfully utilised for political purposes, between terms
that sound very much alike but have very different mean
ings. The Church is, it is true, the Church of the State as
well as of the nation ; but not in the same sense. As a
matter of fact, the unity of the Church is much more
ancient than the unity of the State ; the institutions of the
Church than the institutions of the State ; the property of
the Church than the property of the State. Moreover, in

ESTABLISHMENT 179
its relations to the rest of the body of the Catholic Church,
of East and West, the Church of England has a character
and position of solid unity of idea and history, which only
by a very distant sort of analogy one European or Asiatic
state can be said to have in its relations to another.
(«) Endowment. Then comes endowment and establishment. Endow
ment means the acquisition by the Church of lands and
tithes, either given by individuals to special churches and
parishes, or acquired by the operation of the law and
custom of ancient Christianity on which the system of
tithe is based. In both cases the endowment arises from
property which never was State property in any true sense,
and it was provided by gifts, which although recognised
as valid by the administrators, who at any particular time
represented the idea of the State, did not proceed from
the State in any true corporate capacity. The property of
the Church has in great measure an immemorial title ; and
in the Welsh counties, I believe, one beyond the age of
.record, for the Christianity of Wales is, as I shall state by-
and-by, the most ancient portion of the whole fabric of
Church institution in these islands, and the property in the
westernmost provinces far away the most ancient posses
sions of the Church. I do not think that, in a survey of
argument that is necessarily so broad as I am now taking,
I am at all called on to go into detail into the controversies
about tithe and title.
(/) Establishment.
Establishment means, in practical politics and general
terms, the recognition of the Church of England as the
national organisation for the Christian religion ; of her
ministers as an estate of the realm, and of the rule that
the Sovereign is the supreme governor in causes ecclesias
tical as well as temporal ; this involves the authorisation of
the exercise of the inherent powers of the Church as a
spiritual organisation, and the undertaking to enforce her
authority where it is used in conformity with the law of

180 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
the land. The Church of England is thus established not
by any single act of State or nation, but by continuous and
repeated recognitions of her character and legal powers.
When we come, then, to the meaning of disestablishment
and disendowment there can be little or no controversy as
to the meaning of terms. I think that, using words which
I have used on other occasions and that with a good deal
of careful consideration, I may put matters thus : —
The Power of the State.
As to the power and right of the State in matters of
endowment and establishment, we must maintain and
allow :
I. (a) That the State has absolute power to limit, aXiemte,
and regulate the use of endowments, as of all property
whatever ; not only is such power an essential part of
sovereignty, but its exercise is amply proved by laws, and
by the action of the kings and parliaments before the
Reformation, at the Reformation, and since.
(b) That the State has the right to use such power,
where it is necessary or expedient, by way of correction or
improvement. 2. {a) That the State has absolute power to withdraw
all coercive validity from ecclesiastical acts of authority.
(b) That the State has the right to do this only on
proof of abuse, or when and where the exercise of such
ecclesiastical authority is opposed to the interest of the
nation. No constitutional power or right to limit private bene
faction or to interfere with the exercise of freedom of
conscience in the matters of faith, worship, or administra
tion, can be regarded as inherent in the State as a moral
agent of government, although historically, from time to
time, it has so interfered with various critical results.
Complementary to these propositions I shall submit this
further : —
The Church of England is a religious body with distinct
principles of belief and constitution, and a certain relation
to historical and catholic Christianity, which it cannot alter

THE POWER OF THE STATE 181
or part with without forfeiting its essential character ; and
which the State, so long as it deals with the Church as
a corporate institution, recognises as integral, and con
sistent with the terms on which it so deals, either by
suffering it to hold property or to exercise a coercive
jurisdiction. If it is proposed to alter the relations which I have tried
thus very briefly to define, that is, to disendow and dis
establish, we ask why ? and we certainly cannot complain
of the variety and abundance, whilst we demur as to the
adequacy, of the answers. I take it, however, that we must
be prepared to do more than disprove or dispute the
cogency of these arguments against us ; we must try to
vindicate both the idea and the working of the Church we
are defending. If this cannot be done without occasionally
exchanging blows with the attacking party, we must face
the responsibility ; and at all events we can avoid personal
disputes of fact and allegation. I think it well to be even
over-cautious in using such words as sacrilege, robbery,
and spoliation in reference to the alienation or expropria
tion which is involved in this discussion. But it is not to
be ignored that the method proposed seems directed rather
to the deprivation of the Church than to the acquisition
or improved disposal of its revenues, and thus has not the
excuse which simple and natural covetousness might plead.
The lessons derived from the history of these European
countries in which such confiscations have taken place, are
an ample warning that no real social or political interest is
permanently served by the momentary transfer of endow
ments which almost immediately are merged in the mass
of ordinary property.
The statements on which, ordinarily, the demand for the
disestablishment and disendowment of the Church is based,
are very speculative and very vague ; or, if not speculative
and vague, are in the highest degree irrelevant to the real
issues. When we are told that an endowed and legally
established national Church is a thing mistaken in idea and
opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, we have a specimen of
the vague and speculative; and when we are told that

182 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
freedom of religious opinion demands the liberation of the
Church from State control, we are warranted, I think, in
regarding the assertion as irrelevant. There is a further
argument drawn from the theory that our own Church has
failed in her mission, has misused her means and oppor
tunities, has set class against class, and made herself the
Church of a class, which function the nation or the majority
of it repudiates ; and here we find ourselves in a region
of controversy in which speculation, relevant and irrelevant,
facts and figures, proved or disproved, are mixed up in
a medley which is by no means conducive to clearness of
either idea or practical action.
The theory of a working of the Church so completely
removed from material influences as to be able to dispense
with either law or property, has at several periods of the
world's history been mooted, and occasionally tried. It
was mooted in one form by the Mendicant orders before
the Reformation ; it was dogmatically propounded by
Wycliffe and other reformers, who dated the beginning
of Anti-Christianism from the conversion of Constantine.
But no practical action ever came out of a theory so un
practical. The Mendicants became established, and, if not
legally endowed, still amply provided for in the first gene
ration ; the Wycliffites and all similar schools of theorists,
either did not act at all on their principles, or sustained
the action of their poor preachers by the subsidies of richer
patrons. Their projects fell together with the semi-
socialism with which politically, perhaps almost accident
ally, they came into alliance. And so it has been with all
subsequent developments of the kind.
That the particular form which endowment and estab
lishment have taken in the Church History of Western
Europe is opposed either to the spirit or to the letter of
the Gospel, has been and is still somewhat positively
asserted. That any passages of the Gospel, or any
example of the early workers of the Church, reasonably
interpreted, have ever been adduced to prove the assump
tion with any approach to logical probability, I think may
be safely denied. The whole current of that Church life.

THE POWER OF THE STATE 183
which, whether ideal or not, has been the real stream of the
history by which the Gospel has been delivered to all
nations, has proceeded on the lines to which we are
holding. The very communities which assail the Church
are unable to dispense with the conditions which they have
inherited or borrowed. The idea may be worn out and
may be liable to be superseded, but it is the idea by which
the outward life of Christianity has been hitherto, in very
great measure, moulded since the first days of the Church.
That the freedom of religious opinion has been limited
by the action of established churches is a matter of history
of course ; and a matter of history which contains many
pages that are very grievous reading ; pages full of mis
taken policies, persecutions, and over-definings, against
which the whole of the present current of religious thought
is set in steady protest. But it must not be forgotten that
the very idea of a religious community, whether established
or not, involves a limitation or definition of the terms of
fellowship, which is a limitation of freedom, however freely
accepted, and that the enforcement of such terms, and in
culcation of the articles necessary to maintain and propa
gate such community, involves a discipline which only
in degree differs from the discipline of proper ecclesiastical
law as at any time administered. It is of course a duty
with those who are strongly convinced of truth and of the
vital necessity of maintaining and propagating it, to do
their best to educate others in that truth and to take the
best means of counteracting the errors opposed to it
Certainly the means taken for doing this have not always
been the wisest : whether we read of Charles the Great's
conversion of the Saxons, or the working of the Test
Acts at home, or the Jesuit missions in the Eastern and
Western worlds, we find instances that prove how, with
the best will, the worst possible measures have been taken.
We do not express any astonishment when we find the
iniquity of means remembered when the benefit of the
end is forgotten. But we cannot let ourselves be made
responsible for what is practically repudiated now all along
the line of thought; and we believe that our Church,

184 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
established as it is, has been completely, yes more com
pletely than the communities that attack her, delivered
from the bondage of the mistaken policy with which all
administration of Church and State alike was so long
encumbered and defiled.
Liberation. The liberation of the Church of England from State con
trol, if it were a claim made by the Church itself, as it some
times is made by enthusiastic and short-sighted Church
men, would be a very different thing from that which is
asked for under that name now. It is not a candid or
ingenuous way of putting the watchword of a cause which
at all events ought to be plainspoken and to have the
courage of conviction. The liberation that seems to be
really asked for by the promoters of such schemes is the
destruction of all bonds of doctrinal, ritual, and disciplinary
organisation by which the Church of England as an insti
tution, living amongst institutions, maintains its definite
position and does its work.
That the Church has misused its means and position for
personal or political, party or secular ends, has made itself
the Church of a class and lost sight of another class, is
a sort of charge on which appeal must be made to fact and
history from time to time ; but it is an appeal that must be
decided on the principles that were applicable at the time
the charge itself applies. It seems to me that, at times at
which the great question of national interest was the main
tenance of the Church, the clergy and the Churchmen of
the day should, out of loyalty to their convictions, support
the party in the State that supported them. It seems to
me natural and reasonable. That they should support the
party in measures which were outside of Church defence,
and in themselves perhaps disapproved by the better
instinct of Churchmen, is a matter which, whether in the
sixteenth century, or the seventeenth, or the nineteenth, is
to be regretted ; but I should be very much surprised if
anyone were to deny that it is of the very essence of party
politics that such things should happen, and that, if to be

LIBERATION 185
regretted, yet it is not inexcusable, and certainly does not
require to be excused in answer to men and parties which
avowedly are acting upon the same lines.
That the Church of England has become the church
of a class, a minority, by the failure of her attempts to
carry into effect the work with which God has, as we
believe, entrusted her ; has so failed that her continuance in
her position is rather a hindrance than a furtherance to the
prosecution of the work of national Christianity, is a ques
tion of truth or untruth. There is no evidence that we are
in a minority : it is not we that object to what is called a
religious census. There are very convincing reasons, con
vincing that is, in the default of such a census as would
primd facie determine it, that the majority of Englishmen
are faithful to the Church. There is a sense in which an
advancing, teaching, missionary Church must always be a
minority, a little leaven leavening the whole lump. But,
if it were not so and were proved not to be so, it would
still be the duty of Churchmen to try to strengthen the
Establishment by remedying faults and improving means
and methods, and not, in despair, allow themselves to be
regarded as defeated, and to behave as having no longer
a stake in the religious welfare of their people. But I will
not enlarge on this ; no man who can at all realise the work
that has been done of late years, and that is being done
now, can deny that the Church of England is stronger in
the efficiency of her work and in the affection of her
children than she ever was before ; more hopeful, more full
of prayer, and earnest self-devotion, and thoroughly
catholic and English sympathies. These are scarcely the
characteristics of failure ; they may be incitements to
attack. If we are called upon, as we often are, to justify
our raison ditre, by result rather than by history, I believe,
and I am convinced that our country believes that we are
well able to vindicate our name and position by the
character and completeness of work that we are doing
and by our thorough realisation of our great responsibility.
It is one thing to attempt answers, which addressed to
loose arguments must be, to some extent, loose in their

186 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
texture. It is another thing to point out the mischiefs
that such radical methods of dealing with the Church
must involve; and yet another to indicate the positive
advantages, outside of the region of these objections, which
justify us in maintaining the present status of the Church
of England. But the things are inextricably connected,
and, to avoid repetition, I must take them briefly together.
Summary. (i) The Church of England is the exponent of one, and
that the most important and sacred part of the history of
national life. To disestablish it would constitute a break
in the continuity of national life so far as all the sacred
influences go, and a renunciation of historic unity. I do
not say that it is the whole string of the continuity, but it
is one of the strands of the string, the breaking of which
weakens the whole. We can read some illustrations of what
this means in the History of France since the Revolution
of 1789.
(2) The Church of England, by its parochial organisa
tion, places a centre of religious life and energy in every
district of the kingdom: an agency of culture and mis
sionary work which cannot be left to mere voluntary forces.
To disestablish it would break up this system, and entail
the loss of an organisation by which for ages the influences
of charity, morality, and culture have been brought into
working in every part of the country ; and the comforts of
religion and the helps that result from religious sincerity
in practice have been brought within the reach of every
individual of the nation. This cannot be denied ; and the
result of so deep and fundamental a change would be to
risk a fall back into absolute barbarism.
(3) The Church of England maintains the authority of
spiritual doctrine, order, and government, on the principles
of historical and theological catholicity. To abolish her
national position would be to place the authority which
she represents on a level, in relation to the State and
nation, with that of congregational associations, existing in
the eye of the law by virtue of mere contract. A teaching

ROMANS AND PURITANS 187
Church cannot be maintained on the gifts of those whose
unwillingness to learn is the first obstacle that has to be
overcome ; and every national Church must be a missionary
Church. A really teaching Church must teach with
authority, and not be dependent on the gifts of those who
may use the power of the purse to modify the teaching.
The measure of disestablishment would thus devolve all
the duties and responsibilities of the nation for religious
matters on voluntary and unauthorised adventure, which
would have no inherent element of unity. This might,
under certain circumstances, especially in the contemplation
of the action of the Roman Church, amount to a national
renunciation of the belief in the Holy Catholic Church, and
so far be a blow to the existence of Christianity in the
whole world.
(4) We humbly believe that to the English nation has
been entrusted at this moment, a mission of stupendous
and vital import, as the great colonising, civilising, and
Christianising agency of the world. The disestablishment
of the Church would be a practical renunciation, on the
part of the nation, of the duty of fulfilling what is spiritually
the great object of the mission — a renunciation which,
however and whenever, if ever, it comes, can only be re
garded by Englishmen with shame and horror.
Romans and Puritans.
I have referred more than once to the circumstances in
which the controversy as to the status of the Church of
England is at present being treated by Roman Catholic
and Puritan writers, in curious relation to one another, and
yet, so far as the results of their criticisms are concerned,
tending to the same end : the rejection of the claim of the
Church of England as the national and historical Church
which her members believe her to be. It is to be observed
further that not only in the Puritan school within and
without the Church, but in a class of scholars who have
carefully studied the Reformation history, there has pre
vailed a pessimistic interpretation of much of the character
and phenomena of that most critical period which lends

188 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
itself to the support of the destructive theory. Such points,
then, as the apostolic succession in the English episcopate,
the continuity of the historical corporeity of the English
Church, i.e. the corporate identity of the Church before and
after the Reformation ; the moral character of the greater
agents in the changes that attended it; the authority by
which the symbolic books of the Church, the Prayer Book
and Articles, were originally set forth and accepted ;i the
character of the measures by which the uniformity of
public worship was enforced from the reign of Elizabeth
onwards, and the persecution to which Nonconformists
and Roman Catholics were subjected ; the settlement of
the relations between Church and State during the century
and a half which followed the breach with the Roman see
— all of them subjects on which a great deal has been
written in former years, and new materials of record and
illustration are constantly being turned up — form a very
considerable material for active controversy. Anyone who
fairly considers the subject must allow that a great deal
may be said on both sides on most of these points, and
that when and where they are argued on different prin-
^ I refer to the question whether the first Prayer Book of Edward VI.
was approved by Convocation ; a matter which involves a point of fact and
a point of law. As to the fact, records being lost, it may be said to depend
primarily on the letter of Edward or his Council to Bonner, in which this is
distinctly affirmed. There are difficulties about the dates which may, in the
event of record discoveries, be enough to disprove it. As to the matter of
law, although certainly it would have been greatly to be desired that the
Convocation should as experts approve the Book, the authority of the Bishops
was the real constitutional authority for approving of a reformed Ritual, and
the relation of the Church to the Crown at the moment was not without
a meaning, however much we may deprecate the application in the circum
stances. The Book had such authority as the national Church at the moment
could give.
Another point is the construction put upon the commissions which
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. compelled the Bishops to take out, by which
they were empowered by virtue of the royal authority to execute all portions
of episcopal jurisdiction prater et ultra ea qua ex sacris litteris divinitus
commissa esse dinoscuntur. These commissions, humiliating and unwarrant
able on any ground of precedent as they were, were certainly no reconstitu
tion of a new system of Church government, nor n breach with the old ;
and they were very soon disused. They are now alleged to mark the
foundation by the King of a new Church government, and indeed a new
Church.

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 189
ciples from three different standing grounds, the great deal
that may be said is almost indefinitely multiplied. A great
deal has to be read and written no doubt still, and on most
of the points we may conclude very confidently that the
several schools will never come to agreement as to either
fact- or principle. That the general result, to minds
arguing on the principles which I believe to be true, is
to justify the Church of England triumphantly in her
claim to be the national Church, I have no hesitation in
affirming. But it is unsafe to shelter one's self under a
general conclusion and to refuse to face the strong asser
tions of the adversary's strong points ; and accordingly
those who undertake a share of Church defence must
acquaint themselves with the leading facts of the several
controversies. They must also prepare themselves to be
called on to answer questions that cannot be solved, to
produce evidence of things of which no evidence, that will
silence a gainsayer, can possibly be produced, and to pass
judgment on the character of men and measures, the credit
or the odium of which clings to the body in whose cause
the men worked and the measures were adopted. I can
now only indicate one or two of the points that have to be
kept in mind.
.4postolic Succession.
I will take, first, the point of the apostolic succession
of the episcopate, as being an important factor in the
argument of the continuous life of the English Church.
And by this I mean not merely the institution of the
three orders in the ministry, but the transmission of the
apostolic commission from hand to hand, which is what
is generally meant by the apostolic succession. This is
assailed by those Roman Catholics who affirm that Arch
bishop Parker and the Elizabethan Bishops were not duly
consecrated ; that Barlow, who was the senior of the
Bishops who officiated at the consecration of Parker, was
never consecrated himself; that the ritual which was used
on the occasion was not an adequate ritual ; that the whole
element of mission was absent, the consecrating Bishops

190 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
having no right of mission, and that in point of fact, the
whole transaction being without warrant from the see of
Rome, the consecration, such as it was, was invalid ; we
have neither orders nor mission, and the community
which we belong to has only a secular or a parliamentary
title to the name we claim, if even that.
The Puritan argument, denying altogether the need of
apostolic succession, and summarily rejecting the claim
of the episcopate to primitive authority or historic descent,
comes to the same conclusion : there is no such thing as
apostolic succession, and the whole fabric based upon the
assumption is a false pretence to authority, not only base
less in itself, but used as an instrument for exclusion of
faithful Christians from the privileges to which they are
entitled as believers, and as a ground of persecution against
those who reject the form of government to which it
belongs. Then comes in the assertion of another school
that the men who carried on the work of Reformation and
Church government during the first age of the Reformation
did not believe it themselves ; and that of a diametrically
opposite school, that the importance of Holy Orders in
the Church of England is used as a weapon or implement
to unchurch other communities of Christians, whilst the
doctrine of the historic episcopate is a comparatively
modern invention in relation to the Church of England,
and in fact a figment, so far as we are concerned, of what
is called the Tractarian revival.
Parker's Consecration.
The answer to the Roman Catholic argument must be
found in the careful study of the record in which the con
secration of the Elizabethan prelates is described, and in
the analysis of the ritual used. It will then appear that
Parker was consecrated by four Bishops, all using the
proper words of consecration and joining in the act of
transmission, three of them known, by actual record of
day and place, to have been lawfully consecrated, and the
one whose record of consecration is missing having been
constantly recognised as a Bishop until a new controversy

PARKER'S CONSECRATION 191
arose on other principles ; and it being certain that, so far
as circumstantial evidence can be of use, his consecration
was a fact of legal and historical authenticity. The proof
is abundant, moreover, that the ritual used was, both as to
form and as to matter, one adequate according to all
liturgical authority in the history of the Church ; and that
the mission, as effected by the order of canonical election
and the precedents of the English Church, was as regular
and complete as it could be made. The one thing wanting
in the eyes of the Roman Catholic was the papal appro
bation ; with this all other defects would have been cured ;
without it all other completeness of detail was absolutely
null. It is not too much to say that, whilst in public and
private discussion the controversialist suggests every con
ceivable objection, and I had almost said cavil, on this
point, to every mind that, uninformed or partially informed,
can be inclined in the direction of doubt, it is impossible
to find one who would grant, that, were the whole array
of arguments proved against him, he would recognise the
validity of English Orders. I do not care to characterise
this sort of controversy, but I do deprecate it when it
takes the line of disputing such obscure points as, who
gave priest's orders to Archbishop Tillotson, or was there
not something uncertain about the canonical ordination
of Archbishop Potter ; or was Seeker, or Butler, or this,
that, and the other, regularly baptised.
The arguments of the Puritans against episcopacy alto
gether are of course quite beyond a possibility of handling
now : and they turn on quite a different sort of evidence.
But the statements as to the historic use of the term
" apostolic succession " in the Church of England, and the
modern idea of its real acceptance, may be dismissed
briefly. Up to the period of the Reformation there was
no other idea of episcopacy except that of transmission
of apostolic commission : that the ministry of the episco
pal government could be introduced without such a link
was never contemplated until Bugenhagen reconstituted
a nominal episcopate in Denmark, and this was an example
not likely to be taken in England ; nor was it so accepted.

192 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
There is, then, no occasion to test the writings of the
Elizabethan divines in search of traces of a belief in their
own official existence. Archbishop Parker's own work on
the history of the Church of England suffices to prove the
importance which he attached to succession. A catena of
authorities from the days of Hooker onwards is framed
without much trouble. The use of the exact term apostolic
succession is a matter that involves a little more,research,
but it is forthcoming. The work of Mason, on the English
episcopate, the language of Bishop Forbes of Aberdeen,
in the seventeenth century, of Bishop Beveridge, in his
work on the Articles, of Law and Wesley, and of the
American Prayer Book of 1805, not to speak of books
that were written between 1805 and 1833, are enough to
prove that there is no element of innovation or invention
in question ; but whether or not the two words are in
common use, the writings of Mason, Jeremy Taylor,
Bramhall, and Lindsay on the material point are sufficient
to prove that the doctrine was definitely held. It is not
to be denied that, like many other great truths which con
troversy has done its worst to smother, the great meaning
and force both of word and thing needed, and still needs,
to be more fully realised.
I have spoken at length about this, both because it is
a very representative point in these controversies and
because it is the one which is most frequently forced on
me in private correspondence by people among whom
doubts and difficulties have arisen about the details. I do
not myself attach to the minutiae of the controversy any
such importance as would lead me for one instant to limit
the working of divine grace or to denounce the validity
of ministerial acts, by the production or non-production
of documentary evidence upon the points at issue. I
cannot think that the welfare of a national Church could,
in the eye of Almighty God, be counted to depend on the
fact that Barlow sat or stood at Parker's consecration, or
that his own position and ministerial work is annulled
because his register is lost. The other matters that I
would refer to must be more briefly dismissed.

HISTORICAL MISREPRESENTATIONS 193
Historical Misrepresentations.
We have so long maintained the legal and constitutional
continuity of the Church before and after the Reformation
that it becomes a matter of mental difficulty to enter into
the arguments of those who would deny it ; of the Puritan
who believes us to be an Act of Parliament Church, and
the Romanist who believes that Henry VIII. was our
founder. These assertions, no doubt, commend themselves
alike to those who believe in no such thing as a visible
and organised society of the Church, and to those who
believe that the only such Church is that in the communion
of the see of Rome. And to address to them arguments
that prove an organic constitution and political or eccle-
siastico-political independence in a national Church before
and since our breach with that see, is to throw arguments
away. But our own people should not be left in such
ignorance as to make them a ready prey to such misrepre
sentations — misrepresentations which, out of carelessness,
I hope, or the occasional blindness of hasty party writing,
are to be found in the works of men such as Macaulay,
who, with the historical side of his mind, knew better.
It is, however, not on this whole question, but on the
particular side of it, the moral and political side of the
English Reformation, as affecting the character of the
Church of England, and as affected by the moral and
political character of the agents of the Reformation itself
— on this particular aspect of it, that just now we find
indiscriminate pessimism at work within and without our
body. Henry VIII. is said to have been a monster of
lust ; Cranmer and his Bishops time-serving and unfaithful
men; the Edwardian ministers devoid of any principle
but destructive selfishness ; the Elizabethan episcopate a
body of ignorant and simoniacal adventurers : the Caroline
revival the work of a mad pedant, an impracticable and
insincere aspirant to tyranny, and a narrow-minded, un
scrupulous, superstitious bigot — whose political programme,
restored to some puny vitality in the disgraceful epoch of
the Restoration, fell to pieces at the Revolution, leaving
us to the dead level of comatose Hanoverianism, on which
o

194 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
and out of which, by a series of revivals and counter-re
vivals, we have arrived at our present critical state of
capacity or incapacity, competency or incompetency, pro
gress or retrogression, as we from our different ends of the
avenue may choose to view it. Well, it is not difficult to
gather the string of an answer out of such a sorites of
pessimism ; I might even say that surely there must be
something of divine organisation and divine guidance in
an institution and history which has persistently continued
under such an array of disadvantages, and has done so
much good in the world, as its enemies cannot deny. I
do say so ; and I say it just as confidently as if I were
admitting the force and truth of the views of men and
measures that I have characterised, for the most part in
other men's words. But I do not grant it all ; nor do
I grant any of it without such modifications as can be
enforced by the comparisons of contemporary history and
the contemporary standard of the life of public men.
Henry VIII. was unquestionably a man of lust, of greed,
of cruel and tyrannous self-will. But look at Francis I.
and the Valois and Bourbon kings down to Henry IV. :
and say to what extent did his lustful, cruel, greedy
tyranny affect the course of Church history in the direction
of his vices ; certainly he wrought great changes, but,
where they were changes of moral consequence, they were
in the direction of reform of vice and punishment of
the very things in which he himself claimed immunity.
Were the popes themselves or the kings of Spain, their
champions, more consistent in the practice of ordinary
heathen virtue ? Which of the foreign Churches in attack
or defence can be said to have had temporal champions of
which the same might not be said? As to the use of a
mere tu quoque under these circumstances, I need not
argue: but ask simply to whom was the education and
training of the worldly and time-serving prelates of the
period owing? Surely the whole of the Henrician and
Edwardian Bishops, and of the Elizabethan, those who set
the fashion of the rest, had been brought up under the
pressure of the Roman influence which, weakened in all

HISTORICAL MISREPRESENTATIONS 195
its moral and spiritual elements by the Renaissance, still
held politically the sway over the minds and habits of its
own pupils ; even the reaction that followed revulsion by
no means turned the dross into gold, or even purged the
true gold that was in the best of men from the dross that
was common to them with the worst. Yet I do not
believe that things were at all so bad as they are made. I
do not believe that Hooker, wonderful as he was, was a
spiritual miracle, any more than that Bacon from another
side was a self-made man, or that Shakespeare was without
education or example. The men who made Hooker and
Bacon and Shakespeare do not come to the front ; perhaps
something of the kind is true in other than Elizabethan
history : but the continuity of life is in the spiritual and
intellectual world as in the physical : and these men could
not have been what they are without a pedigree.
So we come to the agents of persecution and repression :
to the Elizabethan enforcement of uniformity and the
execution of Roman priests and intransigent puritanical
controversialists. Was there in the ideas of men or in the
public law of Europe anything better? Were not the
Puritan party the party that hounded on the lawyers
against the Roman Catholic priests, in pursuance of a
policy that had no small part in the creation of the revolu
tion of the next century ? And was not the policy of the
Roman party outside of England even more extravagantly
bitter and cruel than that of the Puritans would have been
could they have had their own way ? The state of reli
gious life was realised as a state of war, with all the moral
evils of a quasi-martial law. Yet men lived through it and
religion lived through it, and the Church too ; and, as I
read it, with an always progressive tendency to the better.
On this state of things came the Laudian revival and
the learned work of the Caroline divines ; but here I stop,
for I do not want either to weary you or to transgress the
limits of such a discussion as is possible on such an
occasion. The result has been, through evil as well as
good certainly, growth in strength and efficacy. It is one
of the easiest, simplest, and most sickening commonplaces

196 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
of controversy to compare the best men of your own side
with the worst of your opponent's party ; but it is not
a commonplace that proves anything or illustrates much
beyond its own spirit.
Welsh Disestablishment.
The attack on the Church of England, made in Parlia
ment and by a responsible ministry, long threatened,
indeed, by a party, and urged on by promiscuous agitation,
has at last come, in a shape which, although not quite
unexpected, still has features which could scarcely have
been looked for a very few years ago. The Suspensory
Bill for the Established Church in Wales is now before the
country. This is not the place or the occasion on which I
can speculate on the motives which have led its promoters
to put it forward in the way they have chosen, or on their
selection of a time and opportunity of attack. Impossible
as it is to mention the matter at all without referring
to the political circumstances, which must shape the policy
of its supporters, it is still desirable to refrain from the impu
tation of views and motives that are not owned by them
themselves. It is quite possible that they believe them
selves to be actuated by motives which they believe to
be the best possible motives. And I cannot, I think, with
any sense of what is just or prudent, take it as at all
probable that the scheme for proceeding with the disestab
lishment of the four dioceses of Wales, and the disposal of
the property of the churches, which, should the Suspensory
Bill pass, must be the next step to be expected, can in any
sensible degree correspond with the programme of a Dises
tablishment Bill which, somehow or other, has found its
way into the newspapers. For the present, at all events, I
must set these points on one side and try to represent
to myself, and to you, the true conditions, which historically,
and as a matter of ordinary foresight for the result, must
be allowed to exist, and ought to have mature considera
tion. That this attack is an attack on the national Church of
England there can be in no reasonable mind any manner

WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT 197
of doubt. Whatever the motive is, and whatever the
policy, it is a blow aimed at the Church as a whole. And
it is a blow aimed not only at the relations between
Church and State, but at the very vitality of the Church as
an institution ; and it is further, if we are to judge of the
true feelings of the promoters by their own statements,
a blow intended against the government, doctrine, ritual,
and discipline which the faithful children of the Church
of England believe to be a divine deposit, to be of the
very essence of our relation to the General Assembly and
Church of the Firstborn. We must not shut our eyes
to this. I am sure that there is no need of a caution
to loyal Churchmen, that they must not relax in their
efforts at resistance in the idea that the attack is only
on an outside and weak adjunct of the Establishment, or
that it is possible to make a concession, in this case, in
order to make the fortification of the rest of the Establish
ment impregnable. I would not mention such a considera
tion were it not that I have seen in some of the papers
imputations of lukewarmness in defence accounted for by
the still grosser imputation of the policy of self-preserva
tion at the cost of Wales — I do not believe in either the
hypothesis or the hypothetical excuse for it. Not the less
certain, however, is it that the attack is on the Church
as a whole, on the Establishment as a whole, on the
continuance of the whole historical relations of the whole
Church to the State of England, and, as I believe, on
religious, perhaps, rather than on social or political grounds,
on the Church of England as the Catholic Church. In
these last words I am giving credit to the aggressive party
for a sincerity of belief which they will surely not repudiate.
If they believe us to be the propounders of false doctrine,
history, and policy, moral and social dogmas, which they
believe to be untrue, they have a sort of justification
to their own conscience of the line they are taking and of
the mischiefs which they are doing their utmost to make
inevitable. Otherwise not. I have no desire to judge
them. I am aware that there is a school of thinkers within the

198 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
pale of our own communion which is half prepared to risk
the peril of Disestablishment, and not averse to begin the
experiment, by concession to the measures now proposed.
The idea, apparently, is that our system as it exists at
present has become entangled and encumbered with
machinery and traditions which are a clog upon spiritual
efficiency, inducing strong worldly motives and policies
amongst ourselves, and setting in opposition to us strong
antipathies, moral and social as well as spiritual, among
the classes to whom we are trying to minister ; and accord
ingly that the Church, retaining all spiritual competence
and consistency, would work more effectively if disestab
lished and disendowed. And this idea is likewise put
forward, with what ingenuousness and sincerity I cannot
venture to judge, by some of the promoters of the scheme,
who at one moment are treating us as anti-Christian,
and at another promising us liberty to develop and do free
work. In very simple language, Disestablishment, in such
advocacy, can mean only the giving the Church rope
enough to hang herself To those of our own people who
give way to the argument I have stated, I can but say, as
I have said long ago, in St. Paul's Cathedral : Disestablish
and disendow the Church of England to-day, and, such
is my confidence in the good hand of my God upon her,
and my belief in the mission of my people, that I am
ready to say that in less than fifty years she would be
more powerful in all ways than she is now — but the risk
could be run only on the jeopardy of the millions of souls
that would be left to ruin in the first stages of the ex
periment, and it cannot be incurred by us who are in
trust, without a certain desertion of our duty, and dis
loyalty to the cause that we are sworn to serve. If the
change is forced on us from without we will face it man
fully, and in faith continue our work on new conditions,
but it is no true honesty, and it cannot be true policy
to betray the citadel because our forces can be possibly
better handled in the field.
But whilst I set aside all other aspects of the case as
unimportant by the side of the main point which I have

WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT 199
stated to be, in my eyes, the fact that the attack is an
attack upon us as a Church in every characteristic and
relation as a branch of the Church Catholic, I think that it
may be wise for us to look over for a few minutes the
historical features of the portion of our body that is for
the moment the object of attack. I will do it shortly. And
first, what is Wales and its historical relation to this our
own England, State, and nation ?
Wales is a district consisting of twelve or thirteen coun
ties, inhabited by people of whom a large proportion is of
Celtic origin, with a very distinct language of their own,
and with a less distinct, but still distinctive, body of tradi
tions, customs, and ways of looking at things derived from
a temperament and experience of their own. The pure
Welsh represent a very ancient population which has clung
in a very special way to its tribal identity, which comprises
probably all the remaining portions of the population which
is the earliest historic occupant of the whole of the southern
part of this island, driven westward by waves of English
conquest. Existing records furnish us with ancient laws of
Wales which never were laws of the English ; geographical
boundaries to some extent follow the demarcations of tribal
divisions which were only incidentally modified by English
overlordship. Mediaeval history is full of the struggles of
the Welsh mountaineers against the pressure of English
feudality and suzerainty, and the complete and thorough
incorporation of Wales with the parliamentary government
of this country is a matter of dates and circumstances easily
ascertainable. The final accomplishment of the conquest
of the Welsh princes, which had begun in the tenth century,
comes, as we all know, in the reign of Edward the First,
who by the Statute of Wales in 1284 arranged, for the man
agement of the principality, a system which, continuing
ancient laws and customs so far as they could be continued,
organised a division of counties and districts, and provided
a government which was, according to the constitutional
ideas of the time, adequate. After an uneasy period of
more than two centuries Wales was finally given her share
in the Parliament, the twelve counties and the county of

200 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
Monmouth being, in 1536, authorised to send members to
the House of Commons. The counties themselves had
been marked out in the statute of Wales, 12 Edw. I. You
may remember, perhaps, that it was not until some five
years later that the county Palatine of Chester was re
presented in that House, and that the county of Durham
did not return members until 1675. Since 1536 Wales has
been for all purposes incorporated with England : and all
constitutional distinctions between the two nationalities, if
we may call them so, have ceased to affect political life. I
need not attempt more minute details in reference to this
side of the question. Careful scrutiny, or indeed super
ficial view, will detect points of resemblance and points of
contrast also, between the relations of Ireland and Scotland
with England, before and in their respective unions ; and
it takes very little scrutiny indeed to recognise certain
tenacious characteristics of Wales, which the present
political questions connected with Ireland are likely to
bring into prominence. That, however, whether we look
at it from the point of English statesmanship, or as a part
of the nationalistic idea which during the last half-century
has thrown other countries into political disorder, I cannot
think of dogmatising upon now — we have enough practical
work on our hands.
(a) The Welsh Church before the Reformation.
The history of Christianity in Wales goes on very differ
ent dates and circumstances from the secular history of
the nation, with of course some very obvious and neces
sary coincidences. The historic Christianity of Wales, the
Church in the Welsh-speaking dioceses, is the most ancient
portion of the Church of this island of Britain. Whenever
and wherever the Gospel was first preached in the island,
the standing results and remnants of that preaching are to
be found in Wales, both as an early colony of Roman
Christianity and as the refuge of the ancient British
Christianity in flight from the unconverted Saxons and
Angles of the invasion in the fifth century. This Welsh
Church thus represents the body to which the Celtic

WELSH CHURCH BEFORE REFORMATION 201
Christians of Cumbria and South Britain belonged, the
church which gave Patrick to Ireland, and a few genera
tions later drew Columba to Scotland, which gave, mediately
or immediately, Chad and Aidan to help in the conversion
of the conquerors. It has its early history, not, I am afraid
very clear or edifying, in the fragments of laws, councils, and
hagiologies. It had its conflict with the Roman mission
aries under Augustine ; it held out for centuries against the
recognised Paschal custom, after it had been adopted
universally in the West ; and coincidentally with the weak
ness of the Anglo-Saxon kings and the strength of the
Celtic spirit, had its struggles with the Archbishops and
Bishops of the Mercian and West Saxon kingdoms. But
from the beginning, and even in the acutest of these
struggles, the uniting force of Christianity was at work.
After the adoption of the Paschal custom, which was finally
accepted between 768 and 809, Welsh Bishops appear from
time to time in the councils of the province of Canterbury.
The admitted hegemony of the West Saxon monarchs
was reducing the princes to something like the relation of
feudality which was maintained by the Norman conqueror ;
and gradually, long before the formal incorporation of Wales
with England, the Churches were one. The bishoprics of
Bangor and St. Asaph revived under Norman rule; the
eventful struggles of Giraldus Cambrensis took place in the
Court of England and under English auspices at Rome ;
Welsh Bishops attend court and council ; were consecrated
and made their profession at Canterbury, bringing with
them into the one system of established Churchmanship
possessions of lands, tithes, canons, customs, and traditions,
which they had from an antiquity to which our oldest
foundations cannot pretend. From the very beginning of
Parliament the Welsh Bishops were barons as well as
Bishops in the House of Lords, and the Welsh chapters
and clergy sent proctors to the Convocation of Canterbury
two centuries and a half before the Welsh counties sent
representatives to the English House of Commons.
And all this was done, not by forcible attempts of English
kings and prelates to force on the Welsh an English or

202 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
Anglo-Roman system : although the metropolitan visit of
Archbishop Baldwin in the twelfth century, and the great
visitation of Archbishop Peckham in the thirteenth, had
the effect of consolidating the hold of England in both
Church and State on the princes and people of Wales. It
would appear from what remains we have of the period
of consolidation that Welshmen for the most part were
made Welsh Bishops and that they took their place as
founders of churches and promoters of culture much as the
English Bishops did on the other side of the marches. The
customs of the country did not interfere with the customs
of the Catholic Church; and the language of the ritual
being still Latin, was perhaps as intelligible on the one
side as on the other. I am afraid that Welsh literature
languished, but sermons must have been preached in Welsh,
and the Myvyrian archaeology preserves religious as well
as moral maxims. Welsh scholars wrote of course such
monumental works as they did write in the universal
language of the Middle Ages.
(i^) At the Reformation.
At the Reformation, the Welsh Bishops took their share
and interest in the work of change equally with the
English, and, although in the parliamentary action of
1531-1534 the people were not represented in the House
of Commons (a point on which I should suppose the
Roman statement rests that Wales never accepted the
English Church as Reformed), the names of Welsh clergy
are amongst the most prominent actors of the time. One
Welsh Bishop was among Parker's consecrators, one was
among the Marian martyrs, one is the single case of a
Bishop who held fast his see through all the changes, not
that we need be proud of any one of them.
(c) since the Reformation.
The history of Wales since the Reformation has not been
a history of rest, of peace, or neglect. But it has been
varied with other influences than those generally at work in
the other dioceses, or rather perhaps the general current of

WELSH CHURCH SINCE REFORMATION
religious history has been affected specially by the difficulty
of language. There was much poverty : the dissolution of
the monasteries which had appropriated the tithes, but had
to some extent provided divine service, in that respect
grievously impoverished the Church working in Wales ;
the tithes were not restored, the impropriators had no re
sponsibility. But from the early days of Elizabeth certainly
there was nothing like practical neglect. The Bible was
translated into Welsh, and under the Act of 1561 the
Prayer Book also. To meet the isolation and impoverish
ment of the clergy schools were founded : Jesus College at
Oxford especially, in 1571 ; a foundation which showed an
intention on the part of the Government to try at all events
to bring the Welsh-speaking population into full sympathy
with the general culture and the religious life of the nation.
To a great extent, and for a comparatively long period — that
is, down to the Civil War — this went on well. The use of
the Welsh Bible and Prayer Book for the first time brought
religious truth to the people, and divine service, in a
language which they understood. The Protestant side of
the Reformation work was welcomed ; and although it now
suits the Roman Catholic authorities to say that Wales
never accepted heartily the Reformed Church of England,
all evidence shows that, together with the accepted Re
formation teaching, the Welsh maintained distinguished
loyalty. Archbishop Laud, who was himself consecrated
to a Welsh see, and who visited Wales as Metropolitan,
whilst he was not a likely man to shut his eyes to the real
weakness of the political position, saw little beyond the
poverty and remoteness of the parishes and the consequent
fewness and poverty of the clergy, but what might be
amended by ordinary care and discipline. Of Roman
influences, except the resort to St. Winifred's well, there
was no trace : of schismatical activity even now there was
but little, and that well under hand. Later events throw
light on what was going on under this surface, but the out
look still was not alarming.
Upon this perhaps too easy treatment of a superficial
aspect of affairs came, in 1650, after the practical proscrip-

204 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
tion of the Church services and preaching, the famous
Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales — a
measure which bears an ominous resemblance to the ex
treme scheme of Welsh Disestablishment which is now
threatened. This Act appointed a commission which was empowered
to eject all the clergy who were judged guilty of delin
quency, scandal, malignancy, or non-residency; and to
sequester and appropriate the revenues of all benefices
" which now are or hereafter shall be at the disposing of
parliament or any other deriving authority from them."
These revenues were to be applied to the maintenance
of godly ministers — six, it is said, for each county,
who were provided as missionaries to bring the people
to the truth as the devisers of the scheme had defined it.
The clergy, whether episcopal or intrusive, already im
poverished and isolated, were widely ejected, delinquency
was a very wide charge, and there was no power of collec
tive resistance. It is needless to say, what is true of all
such schemes, that all that in this design had good and
useful purpose failed : the itinerant preachers were un
successful. But the old influences for good fell to the
ground, and the mischief was permanent. With the abuses,
which, no doubt, had been great, the uses of Church life
and order were set aside.
Nothing that was done at the Restoration could altogether
get rid of the results of this legislation. It embittered the
relations that followed the Act of Uniformity ; and the
severity with which that Act was enforced provoked a
vindictiveness of reaction. And with the Restoration came
in, notwithstanding all attempts at repression, that fuller
flow of Nonconformist teaching which, whilst it affected
England generally, has affected Wales even more distinctly,
being accentuated, as the phrase goes, by the difference
of language. Sadly little care was taken during the last
century to bring Welsh-speaking Bishops and curates into
positions of efficiency. The very attempts made to improve
education and general culture by the infusion of sound
English influences had the effect of widening the separation

QUESTION OF LANGUAGE 205
between class and class, Welsh and English. Then came
the Methodist revival, appealing to the class that spoke
Welsh and needed culture and education most. Still the
Methodist influence, which in its Calvinistic form has had
so large a share in producing present complications, worked
for a long time within the lines of the Established Church
itself There was not, until early in the present century,
any distinct theory or practice of non-establishment con
nected with Welsh Calvinistic Methodism ; it was as ready
to work through the machinery of the Church and the
clergy as through the agency of a voluntary system. In
1811 this ceased to be the case, and since then, although
by no means alone, for Wesleyan and Baptist congrega
tions are also powerful, this denomination has taken the
lead as I believe in the movements doctrinal, social, and
otherwise, against the order of the Church. I am inclined
to think that so far as the theory of Establishment is
concerned, the Baptists are the only community that by
the nature of their tenets find such a relation as that of
Church and State absolutely untenable. Presbyterianism
is, of course, incompatible with the episcopal system, and
Unitarianism, with the fundamental creeds of the Church,
but the doctrinal incompatibility of established institutions
with voluntary association, is an idea of growth more
modern by far than any of the phases to which I have
referred. Question of Language.
I do not pretend in this review to offer you more than
a very scanty outline of the events, an acquaintance with
which is absolutely necessary for any understanding of the
present question. I have done my best to avoid any inter
pretation of them that may be construed as political or as
affected by mere party bias. No question of Church
government and no crisis of Church history can be viewed
as altogether free from difficulty. The history of the
Church of Wales has, I believe, only the language difficulty
to distinguish it from the history of every other, or any
other part of the history of the Church of England ; it has

206 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
no such difficulty as arises from traditions of oppression or
repression, persecution or intolerance of any kind, or of
antipathy, incurable or uncured. The tenacious mainten
ance of a language which, except for very advanced
students, must be regarded as lying to a great extent apart
from the influences of general culture, and with it from
those of historic and definite theology, has the effect of
narrowing the area and sharpening the lines that divide
religious thought. There may be something in the Celtic
genius that is discordant with the Teutonic ; some risk of
excitableness, some singleness or incapacity in varying
the points of view, some shortsightedness and concentration
of sympathy on peculiar forms of political and doctrinal
causes. But without the distinction of language these
influences do not work to any very serious mischief It is a
strange thing that just as Welsh education is improving
and the progress of culture becoming a fact of conscious
interest, whilst, coincidently and consequently, the work
of the Church in Wales is being better done than it ever
has been done before, an attempt like the present for the
abolition of the historical Church in the principality should
be set on foot ; an attempt which really does seem to be
made on the impulse of adventitious causes, with which
religion and culture have, even in the eyes of the aggressors,
extremely little to do. I am afraid that I must add, as in
very honesty I am bound to do, a solemn protest against
the interpretation of history which is promulgated by the
advocates of change, and their unscrupulous use of argu
ments, long ago and absolutely disproved, as to the origin
and law of tithe, the tripartite division, and other points,
which, whilst as commonplaces of the destructive party
generally they have been pressed with tentative modesty,
have in the mouths of the advocates of Welsh Disestablish
ment been put with a virulence of invective and a disregard
of argumentative cohesion that is itself suggestive of any
thing but sincere or spiritual or even rational consistency.
The attack on the Church in Wales is an attack on the
Church of England in every one of its aspects, as a
catholic, national, historic Church, as a spiritual body, and

THE FREE CHURCHES 207
as an established institution ; and as an agency for any
good work, moral, intellectual, social, or political, not to say
religious, missionary, and educational. It is to be resisted
in faith and by the use of every right means. There is one
aspect of the question of which I have said little because
it is not put forward very prominently by the Disestablish
ment party at present, although historically it underlies
the development of the movement at every stage from its
origin, or origins, onwards. I mean this : that the attack
comes from a confederacy of religious communities which
have the reason of their being in the conviction, first held
by their founders and since maintained by their followers
and descendants^ that, in the points which led to the
separation the teaching of the Church of England was
false and her whole system as based on such teaching so
corrupt as to be intolerable to their mind and conscience.
It is only on such a conviction that the separation is
necessary, or, indeed, justifiable. It was the conviction of
the older Puritans, as it is of the Roman Catholics. I
suppose that it is the conviction of the other communities,
although it may be the only conviction in which they
are united. With this aspect before me I cannot see how
it can be denied that the movement in existence just now
is a movement in attack on the doctrinal and spiritual,
as well as on the national character of the Church of
England.
The Free Churches.
And just once more — look at the more distant result.
Suppose the Church disestablished, and her spiritual as well
as her national status extinguished — God forbid that I
should anticipate that it ever can be — but suppose it : what
is to follow ? Can any one of the Free Churches, as they
call themselves, or all of them together, pretend for a
moment to represent the Christianity of England and its
people against the tendencies to unbelief and irreligion,
secularism and infidelity that are working in this country,
as in the whole of Europe, more or less in conjunction with
political forces ? Not for a moment. They have not the

208 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
cohesion for defence which the exigencies of aggression
give them. They have a unity of antipathy, none of
sympathy ; they have not the organisation of defence or
extension. The Church of Rome has ; and, strangely im
probable as it may seem to us now, our descendants may
live to see the defence of religion in this country devolve
on that organised and confederate system of Church polity
and policy, which, twenty years ago, one of our statesmen
declared would be the residuary legatee of the Church of
England.Education. A subject which must always occupy an important place
in a Bishop's mind, and consequently in his charge, is that
of religious education. It is a very serious matter in every
form, and as it affects every class of society; the direct
teaching of religion in schools of the different grades, the
public schools, the private schools, the elementary schools;
and the continuation of religious study from the time
of leaving school, in evening or Sunday schools, reading
societies or lectures, under a plan for higher religious
education. There are also such questions of administration
as school councils and associations ; and there is the
problem of the possibility of securing some real religious
work and teaching in the rate-aided schools, which, by the
unfortunate legislation of 1 870, are precluded from the use
of doctrinal and other formularies. When I speak of
unfortunate legislation of 1870, you will understand me
to refer now simply to that restriction, and the way in
which the Act of that year allowed the restriction to be
worked, to the exclusion of religion from school lessons ;
the result being the lowering of the religious teaching of
all lessons, and, to some extent, the dispensing with any
religious qualification for the office of teachers in rate-aided
schools. I do not think that it is unfair to say that, until the year
1870, we had tried to teach the children of England, as the
children of the Church, their position, powers, privileges,
and duties as " Children of God, members of Christ, and

EDUCATION 209
inheritors of the kingdom of heaven." I do not say that
it was thoroughly well done anywhere, or that in many
places it was well done at all, but it was never lost sight of
The teaching of the Church Catechism, which, I believe,
when carefully taught, to be an adequate mental equipment
for ordinary Christian people, was an integral part of every
school curriculum.
In 1870 that was changed : the teaching of the Church
Catechism was made unlawful in board schools — the doc
trine that we taught was necessary, even necessary to
salvation, was treated as unnecessary — direct prohibition
was applied to the formula; the omission, which is pro
hibition, was applied to the substance of the teaching. It
is only in the voluntary schools that the Catechism is to be
taught; the multiplication of subjects common to the
secular schools, and competition, under the inspectoral
system of the Education Department, with those schools,
tend to put the religious element into a lower place, and
this tells again on both teachers and scholars, notwithstand
ing all that is done in the training colleges and by the
clergy in their parish school teaching, to redress the
balance, and what is done also in the way of diocesan
inspection. And I fear that this benumbing influence
works outside schools and affects home teaching ; telling
also, in that way, on the efficiency of Sunday-school teach
ing by the encouraging of unqualified helpers. And,
indeed, we must not conceal from ourselves that we have
by no means come to the end of the struggle for existence.
The religious teaching that is still maintained in schools
where direct use of formulas is forbidden, is still in the
hands of teachers who, in a large proportion, have been
religiously trained and cannot be expected to throw off
the influence under which they have grown up. That
proportion, of course, is continually diminishing as newly
trained men and women succeed the old ones. The con
stant attacks which, one way or another, are made on the
Church training colleges, require constant exertion and
watchfulness for repelling them ; and in the struggle, which
may any day become critical, our energies and funds will
p

210 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
be taxed to the utmost. I do not wish to be an alarmist,
but we must not shut our eyes to facts or to the new
aspect under which, in present circumstances, they are
presented to us.
In saying what I am going to say, I do not wish to
appear to be trying to instruct men, many of whom have
had more experience of the educational work than I have
had, certainly in its recent developments. Nor am I going
to propound any new expedients or propose any new
experiments. I am thankful to see, and to see the fact
recognised, that, in all branches of this work, our diocese
stands abreast, if not in the very forefront of the educa
tional phalanx, as in the development of higher religious
teaching and in the employment of the best machinery
for securing it. 1 am simply putting before you the way
in which I think that we must represent to ourselves and
realise our duties so that we may effectually guard some
of our outposts, answer some criticisms, and nerve our
generous helpers — and they are generous helpers — for
sustained and increased effort. There are also some very
critical matters which must be noted.
When the Duke of Wellington said that he doubted
whether the devil himself could devise a worse scheme of
social destruction than the secular education which means
knowledge without religion, he used stronger language
than I should myself have ventured to use ; no doubt he
had better information. But whether the language he used
were too strong or not, he meant something ; some part of
which we can be pretty sure that he did mean, and that we
have experience of its truth. He did not mean that any
knowledge was pernicious or worthless in itself; but that
all knowledge opens up to men the ways of evil as well as
the ways of good, and that, as a rule, the ways of evil are
easy and inviting, whilst for the ways of good, involving
restraint, industry, and discipline, we and our children, in
our weakness, need the guidance of religious teaching and
the sanctions of religious motives, prospects, and authority.
Is it not so? The very learning to read brings the boy
and the girl within the range of bad literature as well as

EDUCATION 211
good, of the mischievous columns of the newspaper as well
as of the beneficial or innocent. And that illustration is
sufficient : it is true also in every branch of human teach
ing; and the liberty so imparted, the latitude so offered,
involves a temptation which only the strict inculcation of
and training in the way of purity, honesty, truthfulness,
and kindliness can help us to overcome, which can be over
come by the grace of God, which secular education neglects
to teach us how to seek. Well, we are told three things in
answer to this ; first, that moral teaching is given in and
with secular education ; secondly, that the decrease of
crime proves its efficiency ; and, thirdly, that that definite
religious teaching which we desire is formalist and sectarian,
i.e. unfit for children who cannot understand doctrine, and
on our part, selfish and sectarian, calculated and worked to
secure adherents to the Church of England rather than to
moral and properly religious improvement.
I think that we can safely reply to all these three
answers : first, it is very good that moral teaching is given
with secular education ; we are very glad to learn that it is
so, and so far as mere morality based on selfish considera
tions, or on social considerations, or on old-fashioned
moral considerations which have their real basis on the
very religious teaching that is proscribed, but which are
not yet eliminated from the lessons or the minds or the
habits of the teachers, so far as such moral teaching can
ensure morality, it would be wrong to undervalue it ; it is
well to be thankful for it. But, mind you, the moral and
social influences of such teaching, whilst they may suffice
to keep the young awake to the impolicy, or the bad taste,
or the folly, of vice, or of particular vices, do not in them
selves carry the motives or the sanctions of virtue, the fear
of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, or the
consciousness of His relation to His children and members
and inheritors of His kingdom. There is a tendency,
unquestionably, in such teaching of moral lessons, to teach
the folly and inexpediency, and even repulsiveness, of
those vulgar sins, intemperance, dishonesty, open vice,
which ruin character and prospects, and spoil the com-

212 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
placency of an easy conscience ; but there is no true and
real supply of the discipline of a pure heart and a loving
life, and the desire of the imitation of the Lord, or of
walking worthily of the vocation wherewith we are called.
And again, accordingly, if I am told of the decrease of
crime, and that that decrease is to be ascribed to the
increase of education, I am not called on to dispute the
fact, although I do not myself attach supreme importance
to statistics. If crime has decreased, surely a fair share
of the decrease may be assigned to the continued and
improved working of religious education — it is not all
claimed for the secular teaching — and certainly no part
of the decrease of crime can for a moment, by any pos
sibility, be ascribed to the exclusion of religion from the
rate-aided schools, which is the point at issue. I do not
dispute the fact, I say, but I would like more proof of it,
and of the cogency of it ; certainly there are many other
causes for decrease of crime in the modification of laws
and in the administration of punishments and reforms. I
would to God that I could believe that there is a real
decrease in the sort of sins that bring only private punish
ment, sins against purity and unselfishness, sins which are
tolerated as not bringing their punishment presently ; the
grosser cases of these are in the papers : there is a litera
ture, too accessible to all who can read, that seems intended
to suggest the sins for which the world has no punish
ment. But to the third answer, that we teach formally and for
sectarian ends, there can be but one reply — one reply to
both clauses of it. Children cannot be taught without
forms, and the forms by which Churchmen try to teach
them are the forms in which they themselves express what
they believe necessary for the purpose for which they
employ them. Children cannot be taught the substance
of any lesson without a form ; the alphabet, the spelling-
book, the multiplication table, the first lessons of grammar
and arithmetic, are quite as much a formula as the Church
Catechism ; the only way of learning at all is through the
use of means, the exact rationale of which is not and

EDUCATION 213
cannot be understood until the lesson is learned. We
try to teach our children the law of faith, repentance,
and obedience, so that when they come to the time when
these things shall be consciously the law of their life,
they may find that they have some equipment towards
the work of their struggle and opportunity; and we con
fess that we do want them to be taught what we believe
to be true, and how to find what we believe to be the true
way of eternal life. If that is sectarianism, and if such
sectarianism is a drawback on Christian liberty, and on
the free development of religious consciousness, so much
the worse for those who have made it so. We have not
made it sectarian, if it is so : but whether sectarian or not,
it is what we want and what we do not mean to forego, if
we can help it.
But to leave the general question — upon which I think
there cannot be much difference of opinion amongst us,
looking at our actual situation at this moment — we have to
contend against some discouragements, and those dis
couragements pressing heavily just now. Even things that
in themselves are a benefit, and were intendeds to be an
unmixed benefit, free education, for instance, which was
meant to be not only a relief financially all round, but
a spur and help to improvement all round, has brought
with it an increase of responsibility which at this moment
outruns the increase of resources. A sudden and general
pressure is put on to complete the machinery and increase
the efficiency of schools all at once : all at once things
must be done which, distributed over areas and dates,
might have been easily done at leisure. I do not quarrel
with this; the leisure itself involves slackness of working
and loss in the meanwhile of usefulness. But the truth
is that we are not prepared for the uniformity of the
pressure : and more schools are set in a position of emer
gency than we are at all able to help. I am most thankful
for the means that have been put in my hands for giving
such help ; and most glad to think of the number of
schools which have put themselves in order without coming
to my fund for help from it. But still much is wanted.

214 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
and there is no finality to be looked for ; as the work
prospers, more still will be wanted, and we must prepare
to find it. Further, we want help to maintain the system
of inspection, the original fund which was got together
for the purpose being exhausted ; the schools must have
the inspection, and the friends of the schools must be
prepared for some sacrifice to retain it. The association
of schools for mutual help and joint action, and the employ
ment of such new machinery as we associate with the
name of organising visitor, these matters have been before
you for a long time. I cannot press them more now or
more effectively than has been done. But I will commend
them earnestly to your help where you can give it, and
I hope that you will try to spread the knowledge of them
amongst those who can help as you cannot. And I must
now content myself with the same advice in reference to
the several branches of the Higher Religious education
movement. This is a plan and purpose which we cannot
expect to be at once appreciated in its full importance.
Schools, public and private alike, are a little shy about
recognising the necessity, and, when a scheme so large
and well supported as the University Extension movement
complains that it is not treated as well as it deserves,
our diocesan attempts may be glad and thankful for,
although by no means content with, the progress that
they are making. I must add to my confessions that
I am very sorry to gather, from the report of the meeting
of public schoolmasters at which the question of religious
teaching was discussed, that so little clear insight was
shown as to the needs of the class to which they minister,
or the ways in which those needs can be met. It is not
my intention, however, to make any remarks on the
speeches made at the meeting I refer to, only a very
cursory report of which has as yet reached me. It is very
possible, indeed most probable, that a mere fragment of
the debate was put on record, and that the views assigned
to the speakers represent only a very small part of the
discussion. In such brief reports the points which catch
the attention of the casual reporter are very often the

EDUCATION 215
exceptions rather than the rule of the principles dis
cussed in detail. But as to the general result, I must
say that we do not want an invertebrate morality, which
is only morality at all when it is in sight; or an un-
dogmatic divinity which is dogmatic enough in exclusion,
and has very little divinity or any other sort of efficacy
in its formal and perfunctory inculcation. My own ex
perience of such work in our public schools is not at all
in accordance with such experiments, and I believe that
a strong and manly and healthy tone in such schools is
co-extensive with the sound discipline and sound doctrine
which I trust will always be the rule at Eton, Wellington,
Bradfield, Radley, and the other Church schools with which
it is my privilege and comfort — and you can scarcely
conceive what a comfort a Confirmation in such schools
is to me — my privilege and comfort to deal.
I have spoken at length about the principles of our
action, and shortly only about the ways of working them :
but I trust not in vain either way. The importance of the
matter cannot be overstated — the difficulties can be over
come, but there are critical points, and there are new
grounds of anxieties on which, perhaps, now it is as well
not to touch, lest I should risk a suggestion of discourage
ment. I must not, however, omit to mention the plans which
have been mooted lately for some approach to be made to
a reconciliation of the religious school system with that of
the board schools. In the London School Board, Mr.
Athelstan Riley's proposition for a revision of religious
teaching has been met by a counter-scheme which can
really be described only as a scheme for the endowment of
Unitarian teaching, and which is probably only a move for
the entire defeat of the attempt to introduce doctrinal
instruction. With this we have to do only as interested
spectators. The Bishop of Salisbury's Bill for the intro
duction of a sort of conscience clause machinery for the
inclusion, not the exclusion, of specific religious instruction
into board schools, is well worthy of support. It is so
unlikely, however, that any important measure for edu-

216 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
cation should make much progress just now, that we can
scarcely do more than welcome it as an indication that the
expedients for reconciliation need not be entirely given up.
That our people should be rated in support of a teaching
which, to their minds, is so corrupted by the lack of the salt
of religion as to be practically falsified, does certainly seem
unfair in the last degree. But certain fallacies that are
just now dominant, and certain difficulties which men
have neither faith nor energy to strive against, block the
way, which foolish concession and division of uninformed
opinion, twenty-three years ago, made narrow enough.
I wish, indeed, that we were likely to get anything like
true liberty of teaching in the schools for which we have to
pay so dearly.
However, the Churchmen of England are now well
awake to the importance of the matter. Manchester,
which has always stood well to the front in educational
work, is organising a scheme which must, if it does nothing
else, open the eyes of thinking men to the injustice of the
present state of things. Doubtless there are very strongly
conflicting opinions as to the possibility of securing aid
from the rates for voluntary schools ; as to the expediency
of claiming it ; as to the possibility of securing local con
trol in conjunction with steady working. There are in
fluences, moreover, in every region of society that would
make men satisfied with the present state of things if only
they could persuade themselves that the present state
of things could last. And there are the doctrinaire in
fluences which have done more mischief in this department
of social work than they have done in any other : the
doctrinaire influences that hurry on change for change's
sake, and that dwell on single principles without allowing
for the counter-working and combining power of other
principles ; that never weary of trying new experiments
without considering for a moment the qualifications of
those who are to put them to the trial, or the fate of those
on whom they are to be tried.
It almost seems as if with certain schools of thinkers the
souls of the children were a sort of material on which

CLERICAL POVERTY 217
practices might be tried as vivisection is sometimes said to
be tried on inferior animals, for the mere purpose of decid
ing curious questions, or making experiments for the sake
of finding out ways of improvement. What wonder if they
perish in the empirical handling ! It is not so that we,
with all our weakness and narrowness, have tried to use
them or to treat them. I return to the point I put first.
It is as God's children, as England's children, as our own,
that we want to have them taught ; to make the most
of every gift, to seek to be well equipped for every sort of
real human happiness, to be guided along the ways on
which we know that we have been safely guided in a
progress which can be no true progress when it is broken
off from the Way of Life. The path of the next genera
tion may be, nay, surely will be, very different from that in
which we have walked — there will be even greater tempta
tions, as there will be grander opportunities, and must
be corresponding responsibilities. We cannot bear their
burden or fight their battle, but we will do our best in
faith and prayer to keep up their strength and to train
them for the battle, which, in the long run, is the same
battle as our own.
Clerical Poverty.
When I look round this diocese and see the number of
livings with almost nominal incomes, I am astonished to
think of the number of clergymen there are who spend
their private fortunes in the service of the Church. I
suppose that, as a diocese which has long had effective
Bishops and some local advantages — and I wish indeed
that I was as effective as the local advantages are — the
diocese of Oxford has been especially favoured with such
men. Everywhere I see parsonage-houses built and
churches restored, the cost of which I know has been
chiefly borne by the incumbents present or past within a
few years. Everywhere I see schools that have been and
are largely maintained at the expense of the clergy, who
as clergy are receiving incomes curiously inadequate. For
this I am most thankful : but I think that the laity should

218 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
be more appreciative of the fact ; and I would lose no
opportunity of telling them so.
Still there is a great deal of poverty. How about a
sustentation fund, an eleemosynary fund for clerical relief.'
I confess that I do not see my way to this as a hopeful
solution or even as a temporary expedient. Things agri
cultural may, perhaps, now be as much depressed as they
are ever likely to be short of entire extinction and failure :
but he is a very sanguine man, and he must be very much
younger than I am, who can persuade himself that within
measurable distance of prospect they are likely to be very
much better : and very much better they must be before
tithe and glebe, even if safe, can be regarded as adequate
to meet the old exigencies. No, we must face a depression
that cannot be met by temporary relief Still, such a fund
might do something. I question whether it would do
more than is done already when and where appeal is made
in the right place and for the right case. Here I am sure
the laity are awake, sympathetic and helpful. I am aware,
as you doubtless are, of a proposal that the better endowed
clergy, the Bishops, chapters, and richer incumbents, should
tax themselves a voluntary three per cent, on their in
comes for a general fund. There is in this an appearance
of something practical — but it is an appearance that will
be disappointing. There are many Bishops to whom I am
sure the composition of three or even thirty per cent, for
the expenditure in diocesan work of benevolence would
be a welcome relief — no — not a welcome relief, for surely
there is some pleasure in being a cheerful giver — I will say
a sensible relief But a man always gives with much more
care and with more of such enjoyment as the personal
interest carries with it, in the cases that he knows, than in
cases which are left to a general committee. As a matter
of fact, as I think that I said in the last charge, every
penny with which a Bishop taxes himself for a general
cause is subtracted from his means of meeting diocesan
calls. However, that is not the only difficulty. Deans and
chapters as well as Bishops can calculate their means and
tax themselves equably, but the clergy of parishes differing

CLERICAL ECONOMY 219
infinitely in their populations and in every other particular
that involves outlay, cannot possibly rate themselves in
any such way. I do not know half a dozen livings in the
diocese in which I could advise an incumbent to promise
to tax himself three per cent, in perpetuity for a common
fund. I know that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
he gives very much more, very much more and gladly :
but I do not like, and I do not like to recommend, any
man to tie his own hands or his liberty to tie or untie his
purse strings. We will do what we can to help one
another. I will only now recommend to your careful con
sideration the Convocation reports on this most important
matter.Clerical Economy.
Now about insurance and pensions. In this line
matters have, I think, become clearer than they were in
1890. The diocesan committee of the Clergy Pensions
Institution has formulated the terms on which the younger
clergy may be encouraged to a little foresight, in a circular
which is, I imagine, within reach of you all. And those
who are honestly convinced that it is possible for them to
be growing older, may find in the same circular suggestions
for a proceeding by which forlorn poverty after the time of
work is over may be avoided. We have some such cases
in this diocese now ; and they are such as well-disposed
laymen could well deal with, to the great relief of parishes
which are suffering because no help can be got for men
too old for work. I would strongly recommend to the
laymen to subscribe to the augmentation section of the
Pension fund, and to the younger clergy who can, to insure
whilst they can : I will use the language of a letter written
to me by a clergyman of the diocese who has devoted
much attention to this matter and, at a cost of trouble and
expense to himself, has done much good service. He says,
" I recommend at the age of 23 buy a minimum pension
of £15 1 5 J. returnable in case of death. That will cost
£2 2s. per annum. If better off, buy three times ;^iS 15^.,
i.e, £4.7 $s., for £6 6s. per annum. This with the augmenta-

220 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
tion hoped for will make a respectable pension at 65.
Then, instead of an ordinary insurance, take out an endow
ment policy for ^500 payable at 65 or at death if it occur
previously. The premium for this at the age of 25 in the
Clergy Mutual is ^11 17J. 6d. At 65, by the operation of
bonus, the ^^500 will probably have become ;^85o. If it is
wished (I do not think it desirable), this would purchase
approximately an immediate Government pension of ;^85
per annum. If the younger clergy would do this grievous
cases of poverty would not occur. Inefficiency in parochial
work from poverty would come to an end." I confess that
I think a great deal of this advice is practical, and that it
is all good : the excise on the whole might suffer if 2s. a
week spent on tobacco could be diverted to the Clergy
Pensions Institution, but most other interests would be
benefited. However, I am against coercion, and do not
force my advice in the direction of one particular economy,
much as I should like to do so.
Union of Benefices.
Turning from this extremely personal application, I must
say one or two words about the possibility of using the
power, which exists in the trustworthy hands of the Arch
bishops, to allow by dispensation the union of small and
adjacent benefices in plurality, at all events until some
provision is made for augmentation, or possibly for per
manent union. This expedient for meeting, at all events,
some present pressure has been tried in three or four cases
within the last three years in this diocese. I need not
specify the cases. There is something to be said for and
against : against it is the parochial feeling ; the parishioners
even of a small parish miss the services of their own
peculiar parson, and do not like constant changes of
curates. They miss the family influence, too, of the central
house in the village and all that means in the way of that
sympathy, society, and culture. For it may be alleged
great and necessary economy. A parish may well be too
large for one man, and not large enough to give occupation
to two; in such cases the annexation of a neighbouring

CLERGY DISCIPLINE 221
village is a positive gain to the administrative efficiency of
both ; if the curate cannot occupy the second parsonage, it
may be let, and the rent will be a contribution towards his
stipend ; the whole system of the two parishes will be
eased. It is, however, very obvious that such arrangement
can only be made satisfactory where both benefices are in
the same patronage ; and possibly the only cases in which
it can be entirely satisfactory are those in which new
districts have been prematurely cut off from the older
parishes, in which case it would seem easy to recur to the
old arrangement. I do not recommend this in any case ;
it is better not to contemplate the reduction of the number
of working clergy from any point ; but it may save a good
deal of waste in these trying times, and it will certainly
suggest to many who can afford to help, the absolute
necessity of increasing the small endowments. It is only
in very exceptional cases, of permanent diminution of
population and the proved uselessness of existing machin
ery, that I should recommend permanent annexation by
order in Council, although as a matter of economy it may
seem expedient in other cases. I must add, I think, that
except where the churches and villages are very close
together, I should not recommend the reduction of services
in either ; guarding, however, against the temptation to
deal with one of them by obtaining mere Sunday help.
The clergyman who comes down from London for the
Sunday and is absent all the week gains no real beneficial
hold on the people, nor they upon him : he simply dis
places the parish priest and gives nothing real to supply
the place. Often, too, we have to come in contact with
occasional clerical helps who are anything but helps, far
more snares. About these I have to administer a caution,
or repeat the strong warning which I gave in 1890.
Clergy Discipline.
The list of legislative measures concerning the clergy
which have been before the Parliament since 1890, to which
I need at all invite your attention, is a very short one.
The state of public business has not been such as to allow

222 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
any great opportunity of considering either attack or
defence, reform or extension of usefulness in this relation.
How long this is likely to last it is impossible at this
moment to say ; the determination of the critical conjunc
ture in which we now find ourselves can scarcely be long
delayed : but so many anticipations in recent affairs have
been disappointed that we can only say that an attitude of
cautious vigilance must be kept up. For the time the
agitation about the marriage laws seems to be suspended.
The Act of 1 891, on the recovery of tithe rent-charge, is
beginning to be in efficacious working : the tithe rent-
charge is now payable, as a rule, by the owners of the lands
from which it arises, and it is to be recovered in the County
Court. These are the points in the Act which, familiar as
they must be to all owners of tithe rent-charge, require no
comment from me. The remaining clauses contain points
on which I should strongly advise the clergy, as indeed
I have done already, to move only with good legal advice.
The Act was certainly meant as a boon to both landowner
and tithe rent-charge owner. It requires a supplementary
Act to encourage fair redemption. For that we must wait
until, at least, easier times. There arc objections in senti
ment as well as interest to some part of this legislation.
But the real break between the tithe proper and the tithe
rent-charge took place when the commutations were com
pleted ; and no one could now think of recurring to the
ancient state of things which the commutation, with all its
drawbacks, was wisely intended to abolish.
The Act of 1892, 55 & 56 Victoria, c. 32, the Clergy
Discipline Act, is one of great importance. At present
our practical acquaintance with it is concerned rather with
the history of the difficulty with which it got through
Committee in the House of Commons, and the somewhat
fanciful misgivings with which it was received when Con
vocation was asked to make a canon which should har
monise the Church law with this Act. Of the opposition
in the House of Commons, as it is almost impossible to
speak in measured language, I should prefer to say as
little as possible ; if there ever was a course taken by a

CHURCH PATRONAGE 223
party, or a section of a party, which carried its own con
demnation on the face of it, that was the case then and
there ; and it was, moreover, a course and a policy that
justifies the most suspicious interpretation of every pro
posal on religious or educational matters that proceeds
from the same source. After that proceeding we cannot
give the party that adopted it credit for anything but an
exterminating purpose in all measures affecting the Church
that emanate from it.
As to the misgivings about the form of the canon, I
confess that I did not and do not share them : neither the
form nor the proceedings for the passing of it are really
open to much criticism. Certainly, as I believe, both the
authority of the Church and the spiritual position and
function of the Bishop in his relation to the administration
and execution of the Act have been adequately provided for.
Of course, the Act is not exactly all that an ideal Church
legislator might have wished for ; but in all probability it is
much better. I hope that it will be a very long time before
in this diocese any action need be taken under any of the
clauses of it. The cases in which it has been applied in
some of the neighbouring dioceses show that it may be
worked with that economy of cost and scandal that it was
intended to insure. It is as well that the clergy who may
be called upon to act as assessors under it should know so
much of its general principles and rules as will save them
from difficulty when a case arises ; but there are more
minute points in it than I can advert to now, and we must
hope that the difficulties will be diminished by the very
rarity of the occasions on which conflicting opinions of
interpretations may arise.
The Free Education Act of 1891 concerns a different
branch of our interests and anxieties, with which I am
dealing elsewhere.
Church Patronage.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has a Bill now before the
House of Lords on Church Patronage. This Bill embodies
most of the recommendations which during the last few

224 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
years have been approved by the wisest advisers of Church
men in this matter. It provides for the abolition of auction
sales and mortgages, of the sale of next presentations, and
hurried sale of advowsons ; it affords distinct securities in
relation to presentations and institutions, with a view to
prevent anything of the nature of simony or evasion of the
law respecting it, and to stop the institution of persons on
the representation by the parishioners of their unfitness ;
it strengthens the Bishop's hands in dealing with appoint
ments of men unfitted by age for parochial efficiency, and
makes rules that are very much needed for the proceedings
in case of the Bishop's refusal to institute, and the conse
quent appeal against such refusal. Donatives are to be
turned into presentative benefices, bankruptcy and incur
able indebtedness are made legal reasons for the voiding
of livings, as well as proved incapacity for doing duty ; and
bonds of resignation are abolished. Security is also in
creased in the matter of privilege in relation to testimonials
and references. Some of these provisions will, of course,
be opposed by persons interested in the sale of benefices,
and, no doubt, arguments will be forthcoming to prevent
the summary dealings with the rights, as they are called,
of property, based on ancient custom or legal decision. I
do not think, however, that any one of the abuses struck
at in the Bill can really claim anything more from either
law or custom than that it has had tolerance in a weak
state of public conscience and inadequate apprehension of
the nature of the trusts and duties involved in patronage.
It may be asked. How can the clergy promote the passing
of such an Act ? The answer is. By calling the attention
of their representatives to the details of it, and to the evils
which it is intended to cure. You will find that such efforts
are needed in the case of every attempt at legislation that
lies outside the range of party politics. Just now party
politics seem to claim every question as having some
political characteristic, and I suppose every question has ;
but, unluckily for reform of abuses, this inclosing of all
questions has the effect of staying useful action in most
things, and especially in Church matters.

PARISH COUNCILS 225
Whether this comprehensiveness of political programmes
will or will not preclude the discussion or advancement of
such Bills as those of the Bishop of Salisbury, on religious
education, and of the Bishop of Chester, on the licensing
laws, I am not able to say. There is, however, a Bill before
the House of Commons now which does seem to have
some chance of becoming law during our lifetime ; and
which will incidentally affect our country districts a good
deal : I mean the Bill for creating Parish Councils.
Parish Councils.
This Bill is intended to complete the symmetrical
arrangement which was installed five or six years ago in the
Local Government reforms that instituted County Councils.
It is, of course, quite impossible to say in what form the
Parish Councils will become a settled part of the national
system of local self-government ; for although both sides
of the House of Commons are willing to have something
of the sort, both agree to it with so many anticipations of
improvements in committee that he would be a very rash
man who would undertake to calculate on the result;
amphora coepit institui : currente rota, cur urceus exit ? As
at present advised, we understand that Church matters are
excluded from the purview of the Bill. Against the prin
ciple of it I think little or nothing can be said : within the
proper lines that property and authority involve, it is very
reasonable that our village people should manage their
own concerns. The difficulty of the legislation will lie in
the determination of those lines. I do not think that if
the plan is to be left to the free handling of those who will
work it, any results will follow that are likely to be
hazardous. Of course, if the working of it falls into the
hands of local or professional agitators, it will be otherwise.
Anyhow, it is, on the face of it, a return to ancient custom,
and if it does embody some modern ideas which are a little
discordant, the proof of it will be in the working. As far
as the position of the clergyman in the new constitution is
concerned, he will in each case have to earn his status as
a villager and village councillor. He does not get much of
Q

226 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
his own way now : when he stands on personal rather than
official merits he may get more. And the parish charities
will continue to demand his watchful care even if his
educational and spiritual work is untouched. My counsel
to the clergy in this matter is, if the Bill becomes law,
accept the position sincerely and do not stand aloof from
the working of it. If you have a true hold on your people,
as their minister and God's, you will not find it shaken
by the mere novelty of power in the use of which, such
as it is, they will need guidance. Do not be fastidious,
and do not think of abstention. If you have not such
true hold upon them already, here will be a new opening
of opportunities to gain it. It will do you no harm if you
have to learn to be better men of business. I speak
foolishly, but there is some truth in the thought that
prompts my counsel.
Divine Service.
I propose to make some few remarks on the conduct of
divine service, and on the smaller points connected with
clerical work which in the earlier portions of this charge
I have been obliged to pass over, in order to give more
attention to the matters of primary importance on which I
have offered you words of counsel.
Daily Service.
One thing that I wish you to think over at leisure is the
duty that the Prayer Book lays upon all priests and deacons,
not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause, to
say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer, either privately
or openly, and on all curates, i.e. persons in charge of
parishes, to say the same in church. This rubric is one
which 1 can neither dispense from nor enforce. With many
of the clergy in countiry parishes it is impossible to collect
any such number of their parishioners as could be called a
congregation; "reasonable hindrance" is an expression
susceptible of wide interpretation; the old custom of daily
prayer in church has only been revived within the last fifty
years in country places, and there are in the service itself

SPECIAL SERVICES 227
matters of detail, familiar to all of us who have tried to use
it so, that involve little difficulties. To some of these, if not
all, the Act of 1872, 35 & 36 Vict c. 35, supplied a remedy.
The shortened service appended in the schedule to that
Act is one about the daily use of which in public or in
private there can be no difficulty. And it takes away all
excuse based on the idea of reasonable hindrance. This
I leave for your consideration.
Special Services.
The use of special services is a point on which I would be
clearer. It is important to remember that the Act of 1872
does not authorise special or additional services, except
under two or three conditions; one of these is that these
services shall be approved by the ordinary. It is not in your
discretion to invent or rearrange services, even if every
word in those services is taken from the Bible or Prayer
Book. There is some risk, especially in what are called
Mission services, of this proviso being overlooked, and the
consent of the ordinary being taken for granted. I must
point out that, unless this direction is observed, it becomes
impossible for the ordinary to protect the clergy who
presume too much on his consent.
The second proviso, that in all additional and special
services only the language of the Bible and Prayer Book
is to be used, is, I believe, generally known and acted upon.
But it has been suggested and supported by speeches in
Convocation that the words of the Act are capable of wider
application, and that under the authority of the diocesan
the ordinary collects and prayers may be used, the exact
words of which are not taken from the sources prescribed,
but in which the matter, or motive, or gist, or whatever the
proper expression may be, is found in Holy Scripture or
the Prayer Book. Such an interpretation would allow the
introduction into occasional services of some of the very
beautiful collects of both Eastern and Western Christendom,
which we miss in our ovm Prayer Book, and it would also
give an opening for the use of special services for which
the words of our Prayer Book certainly furnish no appro-

228 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
priate or particular expressions. There have been for some
years Committees of both Convocations engaged in draft
ing special and occasional services, which might some day
or other receive sufficient authorisation. The work has
been slow, and perhaps slow to advantage ; we may have
had some lucky escapes in the matter. But it is proceed
ing, and by the time it is finished we shall be in a condition
to ask for the authority under which the use of the forms
will be sanctioned. In the meantime I will counsel my
clergy not to be too liberal in their interpretation of the
liberty that this Act of 1 872 gives them, but to apply to
the ordinary for the consent which it is his to give when it
is necessary. It is not nice for me to go to a restored
church, or even a harvest festival, and to have a form of
service put in my hands, drawn up and printed without
any sanction from me, which I must use nevertheless or
risk throwing the whole congregation into disorder.
Preaching. About preaching I will say only two or three words. I
wish that I could be sure that my younger brethren are
avoiding the really very obvious pitfalls which lie in the
way of all who have to preach many sermons. Is there
not a danger of that appearance of unreality that risks the
making of preaching repulsive to the hearers? Unreality is
itself a harsh and large word. I do not suspect it in the
men whom I ordain and send. But it is the appearance of
unreality that is the more common danger ; the study of
that vTTOKpia-i^ which to the Greek mind meant appropriate
action, but by the English mind is translated into its direct
Anglicised form of hypocrisy.
Is it unnecessary for me to warn you of the suspicion of
unreality that is aroused by the use of mannerisms — man
nerisms that are, moreover, not your own ? Of course I know
that not every curate, every parish priest, and certainly not
every Bishop, is a born orator, or even a natural orator:
and that it is a matter of necessity, and not merely of
education, that we should have models of delivery as well
as of style for our discourses. I can remember a time

PREACHING 229
when every man who cultivated his gift of preaching was
an echo, distant indeed, of Bishop Wilberforce ; there are
clergymen now whose utterance and intonation remind one
of Liddon, not to speak of other men living and effective,
thank God, in their own work. Of course there are many
who in form of thought and expression have a distinct and
natural affinity to their models, for human nature, even as
exemplified in clergymen, has a limited number of types.
But there is a snare in this — and there is nothing more
fatal to the acceptableness of a clergyman than the idea that
he is imitating someone — imitating even the best of men,
in certain intonations, certain spasmodic apostrophes,
certain expressions of address, certain commonplaces on
which the greatest orators are from time to time obliged to
fall back. However unimpressive your own natural style
may be, it is more impressive to the hearer than an unreal
one, however carefully acquired. A mere mannerism is
very much easier learned than a complete style of utterance
and action; and singular and peculiar expressions which
may be quite at home in the sermon of an established
preacher are ridiculously out of place in that of a beginner,
however sincere may be his intention and firm his hold on
the truth he is telling. And there is one illustration of this,
which, although I may be giving pain to some of you, I
cannot honestly abstain from giving here. I mean this:
the way which many of the younger clergy are getting into
of using the name of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, over
and over again, in excited paragraphs, in humdrum re
petitions, in almost profane connexion, without any honour
able prefix or affix, or even any respectful intonation. If
you would only count how many places in the whole of our
Prayer Book the name of Jesus Christ is mentioned without
any ascription of the kind, you would find, I think, that in
an average careless sermon it is so used infinitely more
often. This I am bound to say jars upon me in the best
sermon. It used to do so in sermons of the greatest
preacher I have known; with him it was perhaps quite
natural ; copied from him it is a mannerism and a repulsive
one. Well, one must live and learn.

230 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
Another thing : certain great scholars and theologians
are busy working at the higher criticism of the Old
Testament, and at the reconciliation of our Lord's method
of appeal to it with the truth of His divine omniscience.
It is not by any means necessary that either one or both
of these subjects should be constantly ventilated in sermons
on the elementary truths of the Gospel, or that every young
clergyman should, in speaking to his people, be expected to
make a general saving clause in favour of accepted verities,
that might be touched by such and such conclusions from
these critical studies, or in demonstration of the fact that
he holds himself in suspense upon them. In nine cases
out of ten the reference is unintelligible, in the tenth case
it is suggestive only of misgiving. And, after all, no such
expression of opinion is at all looked for from a preacher
who is not supposed to have given special study to the
subject. Just one thing more on this : very dogmatic and cate
gorical startling statements on matters which would not
require startling treatment, if they required any, are out bf
place in the sermons of young men, or old either. The
nature of angels, the occupations of heaven, the exact
relation of the lost to the saved, the relation between the
Church and those who disown belief in her, the character
of everlasting punishment — all of them subjects which we
have no certain revelation to make clear to us — are always
difficult subjects for treatment in addresses to mixed con
gregations ; and yet they are matters of most positive and
disproportionately elaborate dogmatism. I once heard a
well-known preacher on everlasting punishment scream
out at the top of his voice that the doctrine was a corner
stone of the Christian faith. He had undertaken to preach
on an infinite mystery, and, in the excitement which the
need of a written sermon would have saved him, gave
utterance to a statement as ill-proportioned as it was
repulsive. I hope that I shall never hear another like it.
But equally sweeping assertions, and apparent claims to
omniscience, are not very uncommon when a narrow
learning and inexperienced handling and want of propor-

READING 281
tion in belief and of preparation in utterance come in
contact with a zeal that is not according to self-know
ledge. The only other caution I will offer now is, do not try to
be startling by overstatement or incongruous treatment of
holy things. There are sorts of rhetoric which are pardon
able on the platform, but unpardonable in the House of
God. The play upon words, the strain after humourous
expression, the excess of epigrammatic incision, are out of
place there. There are absurdities of exaggeration, too,
that move only to ridicule. The glorious music of a very
humble country choir ; the magnificent adjuncts of a few
additional candles ; the noble architecture of a restored
church ; the splendid eloquence of the local popular
preacher — why should you speak of such things as things
enhancing the honour due to Almighty God, the mystery
of the sacraments, the reverence of His sanctuary? Surely
it is the altar that sanctifieth the gift. Well, perhaps I am
grumbling too much : but I mean well. I do not like
to hear remarks which I cannot help hearing, after confir
mations even, much more after special services, that seem
to vulgarise, if it can be done, our humble and hearty
offering of such things as we have, by putting upon them
a burden of meaning such as they really cannot bear. But
this is more than enough about mere manner. For the
matter of preaching, read, read, read ; think, think, think ;
pray, pray, pray; write, write, write; until your heart
interprets God's heart to the heart of your people.
Reading. You will not, I am sure, think that I am wishing to go
beyond my line, if I offer a few words of counsel, words
which, in the very nature of the case, must be more
applicable to the younger than to the older clergy, on the
subject of reading — the books that it is well to read and to
avoid. We live in days of a great many books, and of so
much work as does not allow to many of us much time for
reading, and certainly with not much margin for buying.
Young curates complain, no doubt with some reason, that

232 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
they have little time for study; the old clergymen, like
myself rather congratulate themselves that in past years
they had some spare time for it, inasmuch as they have
not now. Still, in the main, I believe a great deal of
reading is done, and some writing, and both the reading
and the writing is a little miscellaneous. There is much
temptation to desultory reading, and there are hours of
weariness, during which the reading, to be possible at all,
must be comparatively light. And I take it the clergy,
with all drawbacks, read more and more widely than any
other class of men in England. And the greatest scholar
whom I know, the man who is, I believe, the greatest
scholar in the United Kingdom, is the greatest reader
of miscellaneous reading.
The mass of miscellaneous reading within reach of
moderate means at the present day is enormous. Hence
my wish to offer a little caution. If you must read fiction,
and I, for one, see no harm in seeking some rest and
relaxation in that direction, let it be sound fiction. There
is plenty that is sound, good literature, and improving art.
There is much that is unsound, sensational only, and
verging on the unclean ; the very names of the writers
carry their credentials. Close the book as soon as the
suggestion of evil comes, and take care that other people
do not get hold of it. There is no real knowledge of
human life, or of even current opinion, to be got from
reading that sort of story.
Then there are so many reviews — reviews, didactic
articles, symposiums of real writers and imaginary conver
sations of unreal ones. I cannot say do not read these
things, because you will if you can get hold of them, and
they are in many cases signed by authors who have a right
to speak, and whose mature opinions must have weight.
But do not think that you can, by reading such papers,
furnish yourselves with the real knowledge on which alone
you can frame real and independent views, much more
opinions or conjectures. A vast number of such papers
are merely kites thrown into the wind for the purpose
of seeing what way new views may be blown. A great

READING 233
many are trial pieces, the very tone and matter of which
shows that the writers are trying to formulate their own
views; others are ex parte articles, the complementary
parts of which must be sought in the answers which really
makes this department of literature the athletic sport
rather than the schools and lecture room of the university
of public reading. And there is a further mischief in
reading opinions of clever men, which are in the very
nature of things immature. I put this sort of reading next
to fiction ; not that I recommend it more ; there is often
even less reality about it, and perhaps fewer people bind
up their reviews than do their approved novels. Read
them if you like, but do not think that you learn from
them. The caution to be administered in reference to more
recondite reading is more serious. There are many books
in men's hands just now, edifying and profitable to those
who have had the training to understand them, and judge
of the good and evil that is in them, but by no means fit
to be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly.
And here let me remark how unmitigatedly painful it is
to me sometimes to hear, and to hear of, sermons preached
by young men who have read the advanced book without
having worked out at all the elements of the philosophy
or history upon which its conclusions are framed. It is
so in history, it is so in political science, it is so in
theological reading, as well as in the criticism of texts
and the analysis of physical forces and phenomena. The
reader who begins at the beginning has, as soon as he
begins, won half his way to the conclusion. The reader
who begins with the conclusions is storing up for himself
a happy reserve of repentance and some disciplinary
lessons which will have a real value as the conviction of
his own ignorance is forced upon him.
Do let me press upon you that standard books must
be read before young men are even beginning to be in
a position to judge of the value of new and startling
utterances. There are far too many theological books
written just now, of which the guiding idea seems to be.

234 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
that in order to be forcible you must be startling. We
have views on the sacraments strongly marked by this
characteristic ; views on Reformation history, views on the
development of the religion of the future, and what not
You may take from me, as one of the results of a life
of much study of one sort or another, the warning that
there is no real power in paradox, and that where a book
bases its claims on startling revelations, its conclusions are
apt to be either very old or very false.
Still, there are abundant stores of good new books as well
as silly ones: I wish that my younger clergy would read
the safe ones first. Real knowledge, real fruitful know
ledge can only be acquired by learning one's way through
such discipline; do not let the element of novelty, even
if the novelty be one of the widest general interest, and
the resistance to its temptation regarded as a mark of
backwardness and obscurantism — do not let the novelty
of new theory or the promising vistas of developing re
search beguile you away from the real stores and fountains
of knowledge. My words have a wide application, cis you
will realise if you will take the trouble to think them
over. However, now I am not prescribing a course of study,
only cautioning you how you should read for rest and
refreshment.Writing to Newspapers.
I wish now to say a word upon a delicate subject on
which I am well aware that there are strong differences
of opinion among strong Churchmen, and about which,
from past experience, I fear that I shall have every chance
of being misunderstood. I want to caution the clergy
against engaging in controversial correspondence in the
newspapers. I have very great respect for the fourth
estate: I am well aware of the service that is done by
the newspapers to the cause of order, morality, and public
honesty. Personally I have never had serious occasion to
quarrel with their treatment of me, my words, acts, or
books, although I have not been spared criticism. But

WRITING TO NEWSPAPERS
neither the fourth estate nor the general public to which
it appeals is a tribunal that has authority in controversies
of matters of faith : and there are a great many matters
of faith, and of things closely connected with faith, which
require very different handling from the ordinary matters
of political and social interest which it is the proper
function of journalists to discuss, which they are trained
to discuss in proper methods, and which they are accus
tomed, I might say engaged, to discuss from particular
standing -ground and in particular attitudes. We may
grant that the sound logician and the effective rhetorician
can apply his art to many and most varied subject-matters,
and yet we may object to his applying them to regions,
not merely subjects, but regions of thought and spiritual
questions which in themselves are subjects for neither
logic nor rhetoric. The treatment of great spiritual ques
tions, and indeed of ecclesiastical questions, in the leading
articles, of some of our best papers, religious or secular —
for I will draw no invidious distinctions — is not such as
a man penetrated with a sense of the sanctity of spiritual
things and of the difficulty of disengaging them from
ecclesiastical things can either approve or sanction. The
weekly religious paper is a weekly religious trial which
it takes long experience to enable me at least to bear
religiously. The evil, however, against which I would
caution you is not this, but the controversial correspond
ence that suggests the editorial, and that goes on week
after week, every challenge having to wait a week for a
reply, and the reply another week for a rejoinder — a
state of things which is very unfavourable to the exercise
of patience and very hazardous in relation to charity.
Now why should a clergyman who comes across a diffi
culty ffing down into the arena of vulgar animosities the
most sacred things in the whole universe? Why should
a clergyman, in order to liberate his own soul, write a letter
that provokes a reply in a spirit that makes thousands
of those whom he ought to love and honour, sad, whom the
Lord has not made sad ? If he is attacked, as we all are
sometimes, why should he reply? The King's command-

236 SECOND VISITATION CHARGE
ment is, "Answer him not." Why should we think it
necessary, when we find ourselves differing from our neigh
bours on, say, such a matter as the Suspensory Bill about
the Church in Wales, to speak our mind, when really no
one asks us to speak our mind, when our position is not
such as to make it all a matter of duty to speak our mind,
when our information on the subject we write on is such as
can scarcely warrant us in assuming that we have a mind
to speak, and when, in fine, we at once hurt and discourage
our friends and give occasion to the adversary to blas
pheme? If you are called on imperatively to speak,
say what you believe and what you know ; you will then
speak with a sense of responsibility which, in nine cases
out of ten, will lead you to reconsider everything that
you have to say, or else will punish you very effectively
in the reconsideration of what you have said.
Personal and party recriminations are matters about
which I should be sorry to think that you should think
that I think such caution necessary. It is not these
that I refer to. It is the wretched self-consciousness that
must assert itself; the temptation to vanity and obstinacy
that are the direct result of such straining for publicity.
And I cannot exempt from censure any, however sincere
and modest, who incautiously throw down into newspaper
controversy sacred things even with the sincere belief that
true and good results may come out of the discussion. In
the best cases, more evil than good results invariably come.
Bad passions are stimulated, false principles are ventilated,
the Church of God is wounded, and the world laughs, and
is justified in derision.
If you want real questions answered, ask people who can
answer them; do not suggest to people who know less than
you do that they can answer what you cannot. There are
wise and willing men amongst you. For the sake of truth
and charity take care that our good things be not evil
spoken of I have already, through the rural deans, tried
to put a warning before you to this effect ; it is not un
necessary. I desire to urge it most strongly now. The
scoffers may be pardoned as not knowing what they do.

WRITING TO NEWSPAPERS 237
but woe to the man by whom the offence cometh, whether
his motive be impatience, or idle curiosity, or party spirit,
or mere vanity, ay, or the most sincere belief that it is his
duty to sacrifice peace and charity to the liberation of
a soul that no one has the slightest desire to fetter.

THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
MAY AND JUNE, 1896

WHEN the great Bishop Butler, in his primary charge
to the clergy of Durham in 1751, felt himself
obliged to begin with a lamentation over the general decay
of religion in this nation, he no doubt had in his eye, not
only the increasing influence of professed and ostentatious
worldliness, but the working of the pretentious philosophy
of his own day. Fifteen years before he had said plainly
that it was being taken for granted that the falsehood of
the Christian religion was an agreed point among all people
of discernment. His experience had since shown that the
profession of unbelief was by no means incompatible with
zeal : " Zeal, it is natural to ask, for what ? Why, truly
for nothing but against everything that is good and sacred
amongst us." The form of our trial is in these days not
the same, or the same to the same extent : although the
working of the hostility has results not greatly varying
from the evils that Butler had to deal with ; and the
meekness of wisdom, with which he advises that they
should be met, is still the safest, readiest, and most effective
weapon in the hands of the faithful. It is not, indeed,
now true that among people of discernment the falsehood
of the Christian religion can be said to be an agreed point:
and I trust that it has ceased to be at all true, that, to any
such extent as Butler thought, there is an active zeal pre
valent amongst us against everything good and sacred.
But it is true that there are regions of society in which
such zeal is active, and in which that zeal takes the form
of controversial virulence, the painful characteristics of
238

THIRD VISITATION CHARGE 239
which cannot be exaggerated. The spirit which leads to
the circulation of infidel tracts, and that in the most
irritating way — such as the sending attacks on the Incar
nation, or on the Resurrection, at Christmas or at Easter,
so as to poison the happiness of a joyful celebration — and
that for several years it has been my trial to endure — such
a spirit is indeed one that betrays its own motive too
surely to be misunderstood. And when we, whom these
things only reach occasionally, are told that writings of
the same sort are constantly sent about in towns and
villages, carefully to be kept out of sight of the parson,
that the leaven may work without contradiction, we cannot
but confess the existence of zeal against the most sacred
of all sacred things. It is possibly true that the poison
brings its own antidote — sometimes it may ; the outrageous
tone of blasphemy must shock those who have any rem
nant of affection or respect for the truths that they have
learned : but it is not a sufficient antidote when it falls
into the hands of those who, having education enough to
make them think it a fine thing to question and doubt,
have neither teaching enough, nor interest sufficiently real,
to make them follow up the doubts and questions to a
solution, or to realise the practical consequences that ac
quiescence in the sceptical attitude eventually brings. I
do not propose to speak more of this phenomenon. It
has to be looked at in connection with the whole argument
for religious education, and religious education is the only
way in which the evil can be met and counteracted. Con
troversy, if, indeed, it is ever of practical use, except in
the way of stimulating research, is altogether useless in
dealing with the class of mind, and the standard of logical
appreciation, which is most affected by the mischiefs that
I have referred to. The meekness of wisdom in this
respect prescribes Hezekiah's commandment, "Answer
him not"; where he must be answered, let it be done in
meekness and fear, as St. Peter tells us ; the true preserva
tive is sound teaching which will forewarn and forearm ;
affirmative, not polemical; to edification, not merely to
demolition.

240 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
Unity. One of the most important and interesting questions
that have been before us during the last few months for
discussion, whether practical or theoretical, has been that
on the possibility of recovering, for the Church universal,
that unity of corporate consciousness, the spiritual and
visible union of all who profess and call themselves Chris
tians, which we humbly believe to be one object of the
great prayer of the Saviour on the night before He was
betrayed : " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on Me through their word ; that
they also may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and
I in Thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world
may believe that Thou hast sent Me." Of course you will
understand that I refer to the letter of Pope Leo XIII. to
the people of England, on the subject of reunion, and also
to the schemes which are, from the quarter of religious
Nonconformity, annually put before us in the agitation
which is represented in the Grindelwald Conferences. I
would give all credit for honest goodwill to the motives
which have produced these proposals. I am thankful to
recognise, in the way in which they have been received in
the Church and in the country, the existence and growth of
a spiritual desire for the consummation of our Lord's desire.
The great prayer of the Saviour, then ; — this word
Unity, is very much before men's hearts just now. It has
been before their minds from the very first. It is one of
the most all-important words that, in the hour of His
agony, His devotion of Himself as the Mediator, the
Saviour God, offering Himself by the Eternal Spirit to
God the Father, spoke with reference to His people. And
it has been before the Church from the beginning, when
the Church in all its plantings was taught that it was one
in God's husbandry, and God's building: one, "even as
Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee" : one, as there is
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
all, one body and one spirit, and one hope of our calling ;
and so in the Creed, as a matter of faith, one Holy Catholic
Apostolic Church.

UNITY 241
But the experience of the faithful has been an experience
of sore trial. And, from the very beginning, there have
been questions as to what this word of the Lord should
mean, the how, the when, and the where those that be
lieved on Him through the apostles' word should be one ;
and how and when and where they should realise it And,
in the experience of fightings without, and fears within,
holy men, with a true wish to believe and to act on the
duty that belief involves, have very often fallen into two
divisions of thought ; one attenuating the idea of Unity
until it means hardly anything, and may safely be left out
of the calculations of practical Christianity ; and others
restricting it in such ways as to exclude from it the greater
part of the nations and communities which must have an
equal share with them in the consummation of the divine
purpose, but which alike, it may be, have in their turn
excluded and included in the same way. And between
these there lies, as it seems to me, a variety of theories,
hopes, aspirations, and definitions, through which only the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, to be earnestly prayed and
watched for, can be expected or hoped to lead us ; it may
well be by long and slow and separate steps. And we are
tempted, now perhaps especially, although I doubt not
the cry of the people has been from the first like that of
the saints for judgment, " How long shall it be till they
shall know that the Father hath sent Thee?" "Where
is the promise of the coming ? " '' Are we not wrong in
our anticipation, or interpretation : how, when, and where
have we been, are we, are we going to be. One, as Thou
and the Father art One ? "
Any such utterance of our Lord Jesus must carry the
force of a prayer, a promise, a prophecy, and a command :
a prayer that cannot fail, a promise that cannot be broken,
a prophecy that will come true, a command that the faith
ful will, at all events, try, as far as they can understand it,
or enter into the purpose of it, to obey and further to fulfil
ment. Asaprayer: with desire He desires it; the Son Almighty
speaks to the Father Almighty ; it cannot fail ; it is a part

242 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
of the very purpose of the Incarnation, " He shall see of the
travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." As a promise, it
comes to all hearts that are right with His heart: they shall
share the Unity that He prayed for, and that they desire
in sympathy with His prayer. But as a prophecy, how,
when, and where is the fulfilling? As a commandment,
how, when, and where is the possibility of obedience ? So
the practical as well as the doctrinal sides of the matter set
themselves. Who is sufficient even to try to answer ? How in the
past, in the present, in the future ? How in that transcen
dent contemplation of the Most High, before which all
time, all eternity, is one, and things that are not as though
they were, into which transcendent contemplation how is
the Spirit, or is He at all, trying to guide us ? Lord, we
believe. The Saviour's prayer, see you, is for all who shall
believe : what sort of a Unity have all they realised who
have in the past believed on Him, through the Word?
Or, if we think that their realisation is still a thing of the
future, within what conditions of knowledge and law and
system and life can we claim for ourselves a share in that
future of their fruition ? Is it not true that we desire to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, and do not, so far as
we conceive, see it ? A day when, on authority that none
can dispute, the moral instinct in man shall receive one
consistent answer to all its queries in the perfect enuncia
tion of law ; when the desire of knowledge shall be met by
a recourse to an oracle of universal acceptance without the
risk of doubt ; when divisions of heart and mind shall, as
soon as they are realised, be reconciled by the manifesta
tion in its integrity of that which, from diverse angles, we
see only in part ? We desire to see a day when all law and
all knowledge shall be seen to be one, and men who have
sought truth from different sides shall see that all that they
have sought in loyalty is one Truth, and all that they have
loved in sincerity is the fulfilment of one Law. We desire
it, and Unity in it ; we do not refuse to believe because we
do not get it ; our Saviour has warned us that there will be
days when, however much we desire it, we shall not have

UNITY 243
it ; and we learn from that warning that such Unity is not
the Unity for which He prayed, if His prayer is to be
understood as asking for Unity at all times and ways, for
all who believe. The Church whilst it had the bodily
presence of the Lord, did not realise anything like that.
Nor even in the first ages did the Unity of Truth and
Faith show itself so to all or to any believers. The creeds
had to be brought to form, not by successive revelations,
but by successive logical arguments ; and not even in the
Athanasian Creed, which embodies in the most logical
form the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, has the
Church ever pretended to embody so perfect a counsel of
God as would satisfy all who desire to know about the
things that are most to be loved and lived for.
And following up this train of thought, do we not see
that, in the very nature of things, without reiterated revela
tions, there must be liberty given to the human mind to ex
patiate and differentiate ; else knowledge would be confined
to a very limited area, and the enunciation of definite
truth, as the exclusion of indefinite inquiry, would prohibit
growth in the knowledge, and repel the efforts of those who
desire to know. Where countless men, even proceeding
from the same groundwork of fact, devote themselves to
the expansion of truths as they see them, there are count
less openings for such diversifications of doctrine, as the
revelation of supreme Truth alone can bring into harmony,
and the manifestation of supreme Unity alone could recon
cile into a oneness and uniformity of utterance. Do we
ask for such a uniformity of utterance ? Does any Church
in the world expect it? Is any Church in the world
justified in claiming the possession of that oracle which
shall answer all questions, and solve all doubts, and satisfy
all aspirations? Such Unity has not been in the past,
such Unity is not in the growing and changeful present ;
such Unity will be when that which is perfect is come.
What command lies upon us, by the fulfilment of which
we shall justify our claim to share it when it does come ?
Meanwhile, do we not see reasons why this consumma
tion does not come in the ways in vfhich, primd facie, we

244 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
might look for it? If we had to define its outward
manifestation, we should doubtless require, as indispensable
portions of it, the oneness of the Articles of Faith, the
cohesion and solidarity of administration, corporate unity
in order and government. We do not see it. Whatever
may be the other characteristics of the Unity, and again
I say it may be that insensibly we are growing and living
by them, these characteristics we do not see ; we do not
see corporate unity of doctrine and discipline ; and the
world has never seen it from the beginning ; there are no
signs in the times that they ever will see it thus ; and, in
fact, the laws of the development and differentiation of
knowledge, in which doctrine subsists, and of liberty, in
which order subsists, seem themselves to forbid such a
realising of Unity without a special interposition of divine
power. Well, we do not see as He sees ; things are, doubt
less, nearer than they seem to us, whose vision is bounded
by the horizon and the surface ; the fact remains, we do
not see this much of the Unity that we should see, to
realise fully the Lord's words.
It is not without reason, surely, that that solemn word,
" that which is in part shall be done away," comes to us in
the midst of the psalm of Charity, in the pursuance of
which we can all surely do our little to the preparation of
the Gospel of Peace.
Do you, then, perhaps you will say to me, make the
Unity for which the Saviour prayed an intellectual uniform
ity of knowledge, or belief assuming to be knowledge, or of
appreciation of the Truth as at each stage it reveals itself:
do you identify it with the Unity of faith and order, which
assuredly is not as yet or likely ; if you do so, are you not
practically denying the possibility of a Unity in the Body
of the Church, and with it ignoring the article of the Creed
as well as the teaching of the apostles ? Surely the unity of
intellectual appreciation or of external order is not all that
the word means !
Certainly not ; I am doing the very contrary, trying to
realise what the Unity can mean, has meant, does mean,
will mean to the children of the Bridechamber, whilst as

UNITY 245
yet that revelation of the Bridegroom in all His glory has
to be waited for. . . .
The Church Catholic, as the body of the Lord, growing
into the fulness of the measure of the stature, is growing
into that condition in which its Unity will be completed,
and in its Unity much, it may well be, be comprehended,
in which now we see little that looks like it What, think
you, is our duty in that regard in which we construe our
Lord's Prayer for Unity as a command binding upon us ?
WeW, first, if the realised Unity is to be the entrance on
the height and depth and length and breadth of that which
passeth knowledge, it is the entrance on something more,
not on something less, than we know now. And all our
teaching and studying of doctrine, on the rules that divine
wisdom in the Scriptures and honest reason in the reader
and hearer work upon, is in a way a reaching forward
to that ideal. That which we have received is that on
which our claim to share the Unity depends, and the basis
from which our progress towards it is to start. As time
goes on, new teachings will be set aside for still newer,
and a better proportion of doctrine will, we must pray,
gradually prepare the way for the Unity ; but the very law
of our spiritual being forbids the surrender of any convic
tions which we have reached under the guidance of the
Spirit whom we believe to be guiding us, merely to
minimise the points that divide us, merely with the object
of making a show of superficial unity of belief, or, rather,
of what I have called the Unity of appreciation of truth
as the accessible completion or full growth of what we
believe. . . .
We cannot accept invitations to exhibit Unity by cast-
ting away beliefs that are an integral part of the deposit
on which we are trying to build ourselves up in the Lord,
and whose history and development at all events is an
integral part of that training by which we have been
brought, so far as we have been brought, in the way of
realising the growing truth. From the one side and from
the other comes the cry, " Lo, here is Christ, or lo, there."
From the one side the invitation, cast away the discipline.

246 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
in which you have learned of Him as you have learned,
and take up an ancient, imperious, authoritative assumption
that the whole Unity of past, present, and future is in
the rock of St Peter as it claims to be, forgetting that
St. Peter's rock was Christ and not less ours than theirs.
We cannot follow. And on another side, come and we
will build a tower that shall reach up to heaven, only
cast away the dogmatic chains in which you have been
trained, declare yourselves free from creeds and articles,
and we shall present to the world a Unity that shall
convince the world ; a Unity, Heaven help us, which,
without one real conviction of its own, can carry confusion
only worse confounded, wherever it works. We cannot
follow. But can we not pray ? Yes, indeed, pray. Thy kingdom
come indeed, but in Thine own way and in Thine own
time, for Thou art very patient, and leadest on those who
will be led in ways that are not theirs but Thine. Even so.
Lord, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight.
Is this, think you, a cold, unsympathetic, unreasonable
conclusion? Why may we not join in prayer when we
are asked? It is the Saviour's prayer, the divine purpose
which is, as we believe, to be the fulfilment of the divine
prayer. Pray with that consciousness. Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven ; Thy kingdom come. But can
you join with those whose very idea is so opposed to yours
as to the result to be achieved by the prayer ? Can you
invoke the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, can you sink
the differences, can you enter into the spirit of those who
offer you no sympathy but on their own terms, terms
opposed to the whole tenour of the history through which
you have been taught to pray? How can I join with
those to whom Unity and the Church that is to be at
one, the body of Christ, nay Christ Himself, are altogether
different elements of belief from what they are to me?
Yet, may it not be that I am doing the very thing that
I am protesting against when it is being done by them ?
— laying down rules and definitions before the time, and
formulating schemes or principles of unity for which I

UNITY 247
have no more authority than they for theirs. If it be
so, I am indeed only illustrating my own thesis, and
supplying those who are listening to me with one more
argument against hurry, one more argument for patient
waiting, and for putting the prayer that we all yearn to
offer, simply, faithfully, with the evidence of things not
seen, before Him, to offer for us in His own way; for
a consummation to be achieved by obedient following of
His guiding as He has given it us. . . .
Meanwhile, have we one single moment's doubt of what
will be found in the heart and affections of His people
when the Unity comes ? We know that it qiust involve
peace, and goodwill, and loving sympathy for all good
work, adoring love of Him whom we shall know so much
more, and of those whom He shall give us to love eternally.
And somewhat of this we may find already, in the putting
away of evil thoughts and suspicions, and jealousies, and
hard sayings, and bitter words — in the putting away of
the claim to have already monopoly of the truth, and the
attitude of assumption of infallible judgment. Surely we
may, whilst faithfully holding fast the faith that we have
received, as we have received it and experienced the
blessing, turn away from the attempts to harmonise dis
cordant views and contrarious interpretations of those who
have learned otherwise ; as well as from the tempting
policy of imitating rites and ceremonies framed on lines
and models so different from our own. It is one thing
to hold our own, quite another to condemn all that is
not our own. It may be well that until we can realise
the law of Charity more perfectly the fulfilment of Faith
and Hope must be delayed ; until we keep the command
ment better we must wait for the fulfilment of the prayer,
the satisfaction of the desire. To him that hath this much
shall more be given ; more strength of faith, more patience
under trial, more comfort of hope, more realisation of
oneness in Him in whom all who believe are to be one
in the day of His appearing and coming. We may have
this much of the Unity realised in us and to us now. God
grant us it and lead us on to more.

248 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
Rome and Anglican Orders.
I had intended to close here my remarks upon the
question of the Unity, without more special reference to
the incidents which have suggested them. But I cannot
well pass over the discussions which are, I believe, now
taking place in Rome on the subject of our Orders, or
the way in which that discussion is being regarded amongst
ourselves. When the question so discussed is described
as being the validity of our Orders, it is well that we
should ask what is meant by validity. If it means that
the point is being tried whether our ministerial acts, done
in the faith of the Church and in sincere and humble
trust in the grace of God, are invalid because our Orders
have been conveyed and received in ways which the
Church of Rome has not used, or has disused, or has
even condemned, then I protest most strongly against
the use of such words. It is not for any man on earth,
or any Church, or unity of Churches, to pronounce invalid
what is said in loyalty to the Lord Almighty, or to think
of shutting His ears to any of the prayers of any man,
Church, or nation, that calls upon Him. But if it
means simply that the question is whether our mission
as Bishops, priests, and deacons has or has not been
warranted in such ways as would justify the Church of
Rome in accepting us as Bishops, priests, and deacons,
and letting us as such discharge our office in her services,
and in that inter-communion in which such recognition
is necessary — then it is a fair question for her to ask;
and all we need say is that we shall not be bound by
her answer, or by the grounds on which she may base it
We have not submitted it to her, nor do we regard her
as qualified to speak for the Church universal.
But I most earnestly trust that Englishmen will not
be led either to underrate or to overrate the importance of
the inquiry. It is not a pleasant thing to think of people
declaring that the matter is one about which Englishmen
do not care. We do take our stand, so far as our mission
and position in the Church Catholic and in the national
Church are concerned, on the fact that our Master sent

DIVORCE 249
them that sent us, that we have a mission, a succession,
and a solemn historical title to our Orders. It is not well
that our people should be told that it is but a little matter,
or that we should acquiesce in their acceptance of the
charge, that we are impostors, or that they should not
and need not care whether or no we be so. But that they
should accept any such condemnation as it threatened by
a tribunal that can only entertain the question at all,
within limits and conditions such as exist here, is out of all
question to people who believe as we do. Beyond those
limits and conditions it is an absurdity as well as a pro
fanation for the Roman Church or any other Church to
determine, or to pretend to a right to determine, whether
He in whom we have believed accepts our ordinations,
hears our prayers, is present in our sacraments, or turns
away from the cry of His people who call upon Him.
" He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
Divorce. I am anxious to put before you briefly some considera
tions on the questions of marriage and divorce. These
seem to me to be called for at this moment in consequence
of a discussion which was carried on in the newspapers
during a great part of last year, and which arose, partly
from the premature issue of a report of a committee of the
Convocation of York, and partly from some incidents of a
rather disorderly character which took place in a church in
London in consequence of the issue of a licence for the
marriage of a divorced person. I am not going to review
the report of the committee, or define the authority on
which it was put forth, much less to comment on the case
of the London marriage and its circumstances. But as my
own action on the subject, in both the dioceses which have
been under my charge, has been freely, wantonly, and
unwarrantably discussed, without even the civility of com
munication with me personally, you will probably think
that I am justified in what I am doing now.
I will begin by saying that my own personal belief
is that marriage is not soluble in any sense in which the

250 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
parties who have contracted it are justified in marrying
again whilst either survives ; that the marriage tie may be
broken by adultery, but that divorce, which may rightly
legalise separation, ought not to legalise remarriage. And
this I personally believe to be a principle or rule applicable
to both parties in the contract ; and I draw no difference,
so far as this is concerned, between the innocent and the
guilty in the matter on which the divorce results.
I state the matter thus as my private and personal
belief, on which, if the law left me free to act, and counter
acting opinions did not disable me from acting on my own
judgment, I should, so far as I can estimate possible con
ditions for my action, most probably act
I need not add, perhaps, that I hold the law of marriage
not only as a religious, a divine institution, but as the
basis of civil society in the matters of the relations of
family life, and of public and private morality, independent
of the religious sanction which I place first.
These considerations of personal and private belief have
to be limited by two serious conditions — first, the fact that
other men, whom I believe to be far better qualified than
I am to judge, hold contrary opinions ; and, secondly, that
I do not find the principles I have stated, either distinctly
formulated or consistently carried into execution in any
enunciation or enforcement of law, civil or ecclesiastical, so
completely as to allow me to put them as the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; the one unmistak
able, unexceptionable, unreversible rule. Some great
authorities regard marriage as entirely broken by the act
of adultery, and would allow either party to marry again ;
others regard it as indeed entirely broken, but would dis
qualify the adulterer from remarriage, allowing it to the
other party ; some would give the Church's benediction to
the one and not to the other, regarding the guilty one
as disqualified, even after sincere repentance, for any such
rehabilitation. I state these as limitations of skilled and
pious opinion. I may disagree with them, but so long
as I know them to be held, and the men by whom they
are held, I must recognise the fact that my opinion is not

DIVORCE 251
uncontrovertible, and that, were I to force it into act,
irrespective of other considerations, I should do so at my
peril.
(«) Law of the Land.
And, secondly, the law of the land does not at the
present day recognise the principle of insolubility; it
allows remarriage to either party. It gives the clergy
certain limited protection in dealing with the matter, but
it does not incapacitate the divorced persons from making
new contracts, which are safe as regards all contingent
questions, either of validity for family rights and properties,
or for legal recognition of moral character and position.
A divorced person remarries, his children are legitimate,
and he cannot be safely treated as a helpless subject for
scandal or libel.
But at once it is said it is not the law of the land, but the
law of the Church that is the most important question
here, the question that presses most heavily on those who
are called upon to act either against their conscience or
against the opinion of society. Appeal is made against
the operation of secular law, to the law of the Church.
(i) Law of the Church.
I am not going to define or to refine now what is the
meaning of the expression tAe law of the Church, or to
attempt to distinguish the essence of the law of other
Churches than our own. If one Church, if any Church,
enunciates the principle of insolubility, and evacuates that
principle by dispensations and annulments, it can hardly
be said to have such a law as can be regarded as a safe
guide in troubled questions. I will not ignore, but I will
not approach the action of what is known as Canon Law
on this point. Laws which allow the legalisation of infrac
tion so commonly as has been practised by one art or
another in every country where the Corpus Juris Canonici
is or has been authoritative, cannot be appealed to with
any confidence here.
The mind of our own Church may safely be gathered

252 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
from the canons of 1603, which guided the action of the
ecclesiastical courts, until the calamitous legislation of
1857 inflicted on English society and English morals the
most cruel blow that any conjunction of unrighteous in
fluences could possibly have contrived. I need not read
the canons 105-107 ; they, as you remember, contemplat
ing the " separation a mensa et thoro',' and " annulling of
pretended matrimony " as the only causes of the kind,
strictly forbid remarriage under the first head, and forbid
also the sentence of separation to be pronounced until
security is given that that prohibition shall not be broken.
In the case of nullity, for obvious reasons, no such pro
hibition could be laid down ; there was no marriage to
maintain as of any legal or spiritual validity. And for
remarriage after separation a mensa et thoro, an Act of
Parliament was required to overrule the rule of the Church.
It is useless now to debate whether the execution of the
law was always up to the ideal of it, here any more than
on the Continent. It is a thing so far of the past. It is
true that the Reformatio Legum allowed the remarriage of
the innocent party after a divorce for adultery, but that
curious compilation by singular providence never became
the law either of the Church or of the land ; although the
principle involved probably ruled the action of Parliament
in passing bills of divorce.
That whole department so provided for in the canons
has, since 1857, been taken out of the scope of ecclesias
tical jurisdiction ; and the canons can now only be quoted
as an historical evidence that the law whilst it was
ecclesiastically administered agreed in full with the spirit
of the liturgy, and the solemn sanctions so carefully set
forth in the service of Celebration of Holy Matrimony : in
the proper contemplation of the Church marriage is
marriage " until death us do part."
It by no means, however, follows that, because the
judicial and executive administration on the subject has
been otherwise provided for, there is not a considerable
area of religious, moral, and social questions still affected
by the great principle of the spiritual law. No man can

DIVORCE 253
contend, for instance, that the Queen should be compelled
to receive a divorced adulteress at a Drawing-room ; or
that the divorced adulterer should be regarded as a fit
person to be entrusted with a position of influence which
might involve his action on matters in which moral
character or moral judgment was concerned. The law of
the Church remains the law of the Church, and active in
its right of operation, where it is not fettered or limited by
the law of the land ; overridden, but not repealed. It must
be within such restriction that our freedom of debate has
to be exercised.
This is scarcely the place or time to illustrate the point
with historical references ; we know the words of St.
Dunstan, when he refused to withdraw an excommunica
tion against an illicit marriage, which the Pope had
legalised. " Know," he said to the legate, " that I am not
to be moved even by the threat of capital punishment
plexione capitis, from the authority of my Lord." We all
know the part that the question of divorce had in the
struggles of the Reformation ; and in the times between
Dunstan and Cranmer. The legislation of 1857 revealed,
to most Englishmen, a new world of iniquity and tempta
tion, of which in a half-hearted way they pretend to be
ashamed ; for the disgrace is not in the publication, but in
the fact, of the details of the business of the court which
deals with this most terrible curse. However, the law is
the law, and they love to have it so.
(c) Lambeth Resolutions.
Setting aside, however, reminiscences and specula
tions, I will now read you the four resolutions agreed on
in the Committee of Bishops, of which I was myself
chairman, in the Lambeth Conference of 1888, on the
subject of divorce, three of which were accepted by the
whole Conference, and which were, if anything like
canonical opinion can be regarded as authoritative, to
my mind entitled to the same sort of respect; these
were : —
I. They therefore consider it important to declare that,

254 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
inasmuch as our Lord's words expressly forbid divorce,
except in the case of fornication or adultery, the Christian
Church cannot recognise divorce in any other than the
excepted case, or give any sanction to the marriage of any
person who has been divorced contrary to this law, during
the life of the other party.
2. They would add that under no circumstances ought
the guilty party in a case of divorce for fornication or
adultery to be regarded, during the lifetime of the
innocent party, as a fit recipient of the blessing of the
Church on marriage.
3. They recognise the fact that there always has been
a difference of opinion in the Church on the question
whether our Lord meant to forbid marriage to the innocent
party in a divorce for adultery ; and they recommend that
the clergy should not be instructed to refuse the sacra
ments or other privileges of the Church to those who
under civil sanction are thus married.
The fourth resolution, which was not adopted by the
Conference, was this : 4. But whereas doubt has been
entertained whether our Lord meant to permit such
marriage to the innocent party, the Committee are unwill
ing to suggest any precise instructions in this matter, and
recommend that where the laws of the land will permit,
the judgment should be left to the judgment of the
Bishop of the diocese, whether the clergy would be justi
fied in refraining from pronouncing the blessing of the
Church on such unions. — It is easy to see that such a
recommendation could not have well been accepted by
the whole body of the Bishops as a resolution of the
Conference. These were the resolutions of a committee of men of
exceptional learning and very large experience, from Eng
land, India, the Colonies, and America ; and were approved
without controversy by the Conference.
In applying the principles which are embodied in these
resolutions to the practical cases which may come before
us, I must, I think, point out two considerations (I have
referred to them before), which must be allowed very im-

DIVORCE 255
portant weight. First, we must not treat our own con
clusions as being the law or as superseding it ; the ideal of
the law may be far below our own ideal on the subject, but
what we have to act upon is the law of this Church and
Realm. We cannot wisely act on our own opinions as if
they were law, or outside of the legal sanctions with respect
to which we are bound to act. Secondly, we must recog
nise the moral as well as the legal authority of the secular
law in its own area ; we cannot deny that in such points as
concern the legitimacy of children, or the rights of property
of married women, to mention none other, and the law of
libel, the law of the land has a moral as well as a properly
coercive authority.
(d) issue of Marriage Licences.
Now I will say a word first about my own action in
regard to licences, which was brought into question last
year. When in 1884 the question was put to me as Bishop of
Chester, whether I would allow licences to issue for the
marriage of divorced persons, my answer was a direction that
no such licences were to be allowed : the issue had been
forbidden by Bishop Jacobson, my predecessor ; his direc
tion I confirmed, and that course was, I believe, observed,
and is so still.
No such question was put before me when I came to
this diocese ; and matters went on as they had done under
my two wise predecessors : the issue of licences of the kind
being forbidden. I was consequently much surprised when,
having done nothing in the matter, I was called on to
answer for having adopted a new policy in my new diocese.
On inquiry I found that there was no new policy, and that
neither I myself nor the practice and rule had changed.
We were acting on the rule which Bishop Wilberforce had
on very good advice laid down in 1857, which was reissued
in the Instructions to surrogates in 1894, that no licence
should be granted for marriage to any person who has
obtained a decree for the dissolution of marriage under the
provisions of the 20 & 21 Vict c. 85, if the husband or

256 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
wife, as the case may be, of such divorced person be still
alive. That is the rule which, so far as depends on me,
I have without change of mind or purpose regarded and
maintained as the rule of the diocese. The whole specula
tion as to my relapse, reformation, and reconversion was in
the imagination of the people who wrote to the papers.
So the matter stands, as regard the issue of marriage
licences in the diocese, so far as it is in my power to deal
with them.
I will now remind you summarily of the state of the law
with respect to the marriages of divorced persons, and add
such cautions and counsels as occur to me in reference to
them : in respect to such points as admit latitude of choice
and treatment.
You are aware that persons divorced, whether innocent
or guilty, are in the eye of the English law capable of re
marriage ; they have a common-law right to demand the
publication of banns ; they may produce licences, the parish
priest may not refuse to publish the banns if the parties
are rightly described; he may refuse to celebrate the
marriage ; he cannot refuse the use of the church if the
parties can find a clergyman, who is entitled to officiate in
the diocese, to celebrate. A Bill allowing the parish priest
to refuse the use of the church for such marriages has had
a satisfactory reception in the House of Lords. I have
received memorials from some deaneries in the diocese in
favour of this Bill, and I have no doubt that further steps
will be taken to insure its passing into law. I am not
aware that any legal decision has determined what qualifica
tion is required for the clergyman who celebrates a marriage
which the parish priest has refused to celebrate; that is,
whether the term " entitled to officiate in the diocese "
has been held to include one who may not have distinct
authority or permission of the Bishop so to officiate.
(«) Registry OfBce.
In these circumstances the most simple and natural
solution of the practical question is that the parties in
terested should secure their legal position by marriage at

DIVORCE 257
the office of the Superintendent Registrar ; this is not
uncommonly done. This proceeding secures the legal
status of the couple so united. It is an unfortunate circum
stance that the mismanagement of law or practice in regard
of such marriages should give them a clandestine and, to
a certain degree, a rather disreputable appearance ; but they
are valid marriages, although the blessing of Almighty God,
according to the rules of the Churches throughout Christen
dom, is not implored for them, nor any proper benediction
given. The further question is, to what extent may the
recognition of the Church, as distinct from that of the law,
be given to them. I have not heard of any case in which
divorced persons, after civil marriage, have in this diocese
applied for celebration of holy matrimony in church. Such
celebration would not be contrary to the law of the land,
as laid down in Sec. 12 of 19 & 20 Vict c. 119. Should
it arise as a practical question, I should be guided by the
first and second resolutions of the Lambeth Conference, in
any case in which I should be asked to advise the clergy.
(/) The Innocent Party.
But I would dwell for a moment longer on the third of
the resolutions, which recommends that the clergy should
not be instructed to refuse the sacraments or other
privileges of the Church to those who under civil sanction
are so married — i.e. persons who, having been innocent
parties in a divorce, have remarried at the Registry or else
where. Of course it is one thing not to instruct the clergy
to refuse, and another to instruct the clergy not to refuse.
I confess that at the present moment, after very careful
study of authorities, and in very sincere humility as to my
own capacity for judgment, I am inclined to advise the
clergy not to be too rigorous in this matter. To put one
case specially. A man, innocent party in a divorce case,
marries an innocent woman ; the marriage is legal, it
conveys no idea or suspicion of immoral relations. Can
the woman be reasonably regarded as excluded from the
privilege of Communion which she seeks as a means of
grace? — for I must exclude the consideration of cases in
s

258 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
which people attempt to use their admission to the Sacra
ment as a sort of quasi-rehabilitation. I confess that
I think it hard if she is so excluded ; I cannot instruct the
clergy to do so. And neither shall I instruct them to
refuse Communion to the innocent man who has after
divorce so married. I think that, as St. Paul says in
another case, he is wiser if he so abide ; but I do not share
the idea that we should repel him as a notorious sinner,
which, after all said and done, he is not.
And lastly, seeing that the right and duty of the clergy
to repel unfit persons from Holy Communion is a right
and duty beset with canonical and legal difficulties, I
would earnestly deprecate any rash or arbitrary action in
such and in all such questions. I would warn you in
dealing with them not to mistake your own historical or
spiritual conclusions for the law, spiritual or secular, of this
realm and Church ; and not to be led into a labyrinth of
casuistic possibilities by invitations into the Canon Law of
other ages, countries, Churches, and conditions. It is a
divided responsibility that in these matters lies upon the
parish priest; some of it lies on the conscience of the
would-be communicant It is better to suffer a hundred
cases of unworthiness than to drive away a single penitent,
or a single earnest candidate seeking strength and grace.
I speak as advising, not as directing, here.
In conclusion, I must deprecate rash utterances and
impulsive action; it is to the last degree, and is sure to
be construed as, a sacrifice of principle to self-will. I
know, and you know, that there is an evil influence at work
in society, which only awaits its opportunity of still further
relaxing the law of marriage, getting rid of religious safe
guards, and making that which should be the trustworthy
basis of social relations a mere temporary contract that
may be broken or dissolved by mutual consent Depend
upon it, sensational proceedings and ill-considered enuncia
tions or general allegations, which have very little effect
for good, lay us open to attacks which it may be very
difficult to repel. The parish priest must remember that
whilst he is bound to consider all circumstances which

DECEASED WIFKS SISTER BILL 259
may affect his own conscience or his duty to his people, he
is not a judge of the law, much less a judge beyond reach
of appeal ; and that he had better not constitute himself
an arbiter in the cases with which his conscience and
duty are not concerned. Of course I mean only cases in
which questions may reasonably be regarded as debateable.
Principle is never endangered by consistent prudence ; and
where principle is real and strong there is no risk in
equitable suspension of the exercise of judgment.
Deceased Wife's Sister Bill.
I must not leave the question of the Marriage Law
without some reference to the continuous pertinacious
attempts to withdraw, by legislative action, the union of
a man with his deceased wife's sister from the list of pro
hibited marriages. It is a painful thing to have year after
year the Bill for authorising this measure carried through
the House of Commons, to be rejected with very varying
majorities in the House of Lords. And it is one of those
struggles which by their very weariness betray us into
defeat or compromise. And it is an irritating struggle
also, because of the continuous misrepresentation of the
reasons for opposition. We are told so constantly that the
opposition of the Bishops is a mere act of self-opinionated
and arbitrary obstinacy : it is never even for a moment
allowed as possible that we should have a conviction that
the change would be a wrong act, contrary to the whole
spirit of scriptural argument and analogy, contrary to the
tradition of the Church, contrary to public policy in its
highest regard to social morals. It is not considered
either that with the present temptation offered by facility
of divorce, the integrity of nine-tenths of the households of
the country might be put in peril. It may be said that I
am assuming too low a level of common morality. It
would be well if I were exaggerating, but the pressure on
both these points is very strong, and neither class feeling,
nor family feeling, nor even religious conviction, seems to
protect us. The area of divorce seems extending ; the re
laxation of the prohibition of these marriages to be urged

260 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
more vehemently than ever. I can say nothing new about
this. I will not suggest compromise. If the thing is to
be done, it must involve an extension of the system of
civil marriage, which is indeed a small part of the evil ; it
must involve the reconstruction of domestic relations of
the closest character ; and it means a store of ecclesiastical
difficulties that I shudder to contemplate. As a minor
matter, I must protest distinctly against the cogency of
arguments derived from the practice of Churches and
countries in which the sanctity of marriage is of less
account than it is in England. The arguments are far
fetched, and singularly unreal in the mouths of men who,
to their credit be it said, would be the last to admit the
relevance of the analogy in other matters.
Chiurch Reform.
At the time of the Visitation of 1893 we were, as you
will well remember, anxiously preparing to meet the attack
on the Church of England threatened by the proposed
measure for the disestablishment of the Church in Wales.
Consequently a large section of my charge was occupied
with advice and caution on the subject of Church defence,
chiefly, however, from the point of securing right and true
information on the methods of defence, and the realising
of what it was that we have to defend. Now that par
ticular cloud has passed away — would that we could say
entirely and for ever ; and, so far as the special measure of
attack is concerned, there is a cessation of agitation. We
owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have helped in
the work of defence, and who have succeeded in putting
before the nation the true issues that were involved in the
struggle. For the moment there is a lull in the strife, and
it is one to which we have to take good heed ; for, depend
upon it, the agency which was at work against us in 1893
is at work as actively as ever in other forms and specialisa
tion of aims. It is not reconciled to a repulse, it will not
hesitate to take advantage of any opportunity, it will
not allow us for a moment to neglect defence ; nay, its
apparent quiescence should be putting us on our guard

CHURCH REFORM 261
all round, lest the next attack should be directed to some
point at which we are still more open to it. We have to
maintain and extend our defences.
For the present the situation seems to be this : there
is a favourite watchword, " Church Defence is Church
Reform." It is a brief and comprehensive formula ;
unfortunately, like all other such watchwords, it has a
double edge, and it is not wise to accept it as a basis of
alliance without a distinct understanding of what "Reform"
means. The word is an awkward one, for it may quite as
easily be interpreted to mean the pulling in pieces of the
whole fabric of the Church of England to be reconstructed
on principles altogether new, as it can be interpreted to
mean the getting rid of recognised abuses and the bringing
into their proper relations of the portions of the fabric
which the recognised abuses are disguising or disgracing.
The cry of Church Reform means a good many things
between these two extremes of the scale: between the
demand for such measures on patronage and discipline as
have been proposed and embodied in proposals of legisla
tion by the Archbishops and their advisers ; between the
confused and confusing schemes for ecclesiastical unity
which have been formulated by the two furthest apart
sections of religious people within and without our com
munion ; between the theories of ideal reorganisation that
are ventilated by constitutional specialists ; between the
practical immobility of those who would contend that
even if in the Church whatever is is not right, it is still so
out of repair and ill-balanced that it cannot be touched
with a hope of securing any great improvement ; and the
speculative adventuresomeness of others who maintain
that whatever is is wrong, that any change must be for
the better, or if not, that there is nothing worth saving.
Sharp words come from all these quarters ; sharp words
of attack and sharp words of reply. And the Bishops,
I think, get a good many of them from friends, candid and
critical, and foes who borrow their weapons from the candid
and critical friends, as well as prove their genius for attack
by the invention of new artillery. From even one and the

262 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
same quarter come curious and inconsistent reproaches —
reproaches with which we have to reconcile ourselves as
proofs that we are suffering in the way that from the begin
ning Bishops have a right to expect We are solemnly
warned of our several and special delinquences ; of our
neglect of the discipline which we ought to bring to bear
against one another ; of our attempts to enforce discipline
where we can and have done it ; of our party proceedings
and our want of corporate zeal ; of the rashness of our
utterances and the impossibility of getting us to speak out;
of our subserviency to lawyers and newspapers ; of our
fatal slumbers and our helpless perplexity. And we are as
constantly urged, even implored, to exercise powers which
we have not, by the very people who are as constantly
blocking the exercise of the powers we have. Then, again,
we are to put our house in order ; to substitute democratic
for autocratic polity ; to equalise all endowments ; to fill
all posts of trust by elective processes ; to reconstruct
Convocation ; to protect the interests of curates ; to leave
untouched the rights of patrons, and devolve the choice of
clergy on the parishioners. But there is no limit to the
number of our counsellors, and we are tempted, as has
been said, to think that our safety is largely secured by it
But it is all very serious matter, and it is no adequate
answer to say that it always has been so, and probably
always will be ; and that it is of no use to murmur against
bitter words.
In point of fact there is much to do, and we are not idle;
I speak from experience when I say that a man who be
comes a Bishop gives up everything else to enable himself
to give himself to the work that God sets him ; and very
sadly insufficient he finds himself But it is not true that
he is callous to his duty because the results of his work are
not brilliant or conspicuous even, much less because they
do not correspond with the ideal of the critic who has
neither knowledge of what he does, nor experience of his
responsibility. But it is of no use to go on expostulating or complaining
about ignorant criticism: rather let me just, in a few

CHURCH PATRONAGE 263
words, note some of the real points of proposed reform
and warrantable criticism, and then devote a few moments
to the consideration of that defence of Anglicanism, the
question of Establishment, and the reproach which is made
against us of being more ready to defend the goods of the
Church of England than the law and teaching of the
Church of Christ.
Church Patronage.
The reform in the matter of patronage has long been
before the minds of friends and enemies alike. I believe
that the measures now before Parliament will, if they
become law, meet some of the strongest and real true
objections to the present state of things, which is not really
a system, but the result of a number of experiments, partial
in their application and tentative in their very nature,
made, through several centuries, to meet particular cases
of rights and wrongs.
(a) Its History.
The history of patronage goes a very long way back in
European history; the provision for the ministers of the
Gospel, like the provision for the life and happiness of
everybody else, depends on material conditions which are
inextricably connected with temporal regulations. The
law of the land secures them, and without the law of the
land they cannot be secured ; for supposing the clergy to
live upon alms, those alms cannot be given, or received,
except under the permission, the sanction, the security of
law. And the long history of endowment is a section of
legal as well as Church history. The utmost that the
Church could do in the matter of regulating the existing
use of patronage would be to try to create such a feeling
of living responsibility in the people as would insure the
maintenance and enforcement of legal and justifiable
rights in legal and justifiable ways. The efforts of
ecclesiastical statesmen have constantly and consist
ently been directed to this aim : and the present pro
posals bear this on the face of them, But we cannot

264 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
have a rectification of abuses without some sort of loss to
those who have a sort of vested interest in the existing
abuses. Hence delays, and objections, and complaints of
hardship which require equitable and, therefore, patient,
possibly slow, treatment. I trust that such will be afforded
in the Patronage Act when it has become law. Some
points in it are beyond criticism, such as the provisions for
getting rid of incapable ministers, and the like, which are
simply enforcements of conditions under which alone the
trust of patronage can be conscientiously exercised. I
allow that much more remains : the prevention of unfit
appointments is the most important And this is one of
the points of Church Reform which is so often incon
siderately and ignorantly put forward from very different
quarters ; some people insisting on the right of the
parishioners to choose their own clergyman without any
consideration of the rights of patrons or the means of
providing for him ; others advising an unrestricted veto ;
and others recommending an arrangement by which the
patron, the Bishop, and the parishioners might be brought
into concordant action. And this last would seem equit
able, provided it were feasible, for it recognises at once the
right of authority, of corporate liberty of action, and of
proprietary patronage. But all these plans are open to the
evil, the unhappily original sin, of all elective processes ;
they cannot be unanimous, they cannot avoid competitive
and divided ingredients, they would prepare in every parish
a strong basis of opposition to every clergyman who could
not secure a unanimous constituency, an accommodating,
conscientious, and disinterested patron, and a Bishop who
had no prejudices. It may be sufficient to say that the
elective plan fails wherever it is tried, and besides its
failure, produces a struggle of advocacy, canvassing,
jealousy, heartburnings, and oppressive obligations which
must be fatally prejudicial to the work of the very best man
who has succeeded in passing through the ordeal. From
such evils, and those that result from them, it will not be
hasty, experimental legislation that will rescue us ; only the
spread of real knowledge of rights, duties, authorities, and

CHURCH PATRONAGE 265
privileges which improving education, in these, as in all
other matters, ought to be furnishing to us. There must
be one step at a time.
(i) Its Administration.
This seems to be an appropriate place for saying a word
about the claims that stipendiary assistant curates have in
relation to patronage, and of the way in which those claims,
and the complaints of some of the body, have been put
forth in public and private correspondence within the last
few months. There is no difficulty in seeing the justice of
the claim for recognition, or the soreness which arises from
the neglect of it. But there is no general or widely pre
vailing neglect of it, least of all in the quarters which are
most loudly called to account by the advocates of the
peremptory claims of the curates. It does seem to me that
there are two radical prejudices which are introduced at the
very outset of the discussion. The one sole and sufficient
principle which every patron of a benefice has to set before
him is that he should seek the fit man for it I am sure
that that is the principle with the vast majority of private
and public patrons; I must exclude of course that class
against which the legislation or patronage is directly aimed.
The one point is to get the right man in the right place.
The two prejudicial influences that I mentioned are, first, the
idea that all pastoral work is very much alike, so that the
place, wherever it may be, and whatever the sort of its
inhabitants and its traditions, may be satisfied with any
man of ordinary or average competency ; and, second, the
idea that all qualified clergymen are pretty much alike,
their accomplishments experience, and natural qualifica
tions making little or no difference in relation to the work
entrusted to them. Of course, so stated the absurdity is
patent. No two places are alike, no two men are equal —
but the idea is there; and we are told practically that in
selecting and accepting candidates for ordination, we are
stamping them with a mark that qualifies them for any sort
of pastoral work. With this in view as to principle, what
do we find in fact and practice? Many curates have to wait

266 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
for many years before they obtain livings, many marry on
precarious and insufficient incomes, and many find them
selves from time to time associated with incumbents who
cannot work with them, or with whom they cannot work.
These three grounds of grievance are incidental to all pro
fessional life; and, gladly as we would see the professional
difficulties of clergymen made as small as they can be made,
no system can possibly avoid them all. I do not know that
I need lay much stress on the appeals which I occasionally
receive, urging me not to ordain so many men, on the
ground that the supply of curates is greater than the
demand, that the increase of the supply creates undue
competition, and consequent lowering of stipends with the
accompanying drawbacks. I cannot lay much stress upon
this, knowing as I do the difficulty that every incumbent
who wants a curate finds in securing one, not to say in
securing the sort of man he wants. There is no such glut,
no such competition among the well-qualified, trusted, and
proved men. Nor is it on behalf of such men, speaking
generally, that the peremptory claims are made. I would
not say anything harsh or unsympathetic; no doubt there
are here and there cases of neglected merit, cases of merit
which inseparable circumstances, of sorts which I need not
specify, make it impossible for prudent patrons to recognise.
Now, however, without respect of persons, qualifications
or disqualifications, it is peremptorily demanded that the
status of assistant curates should have such recognition : —
that they should have a recognised claim to promotion,
stipends allotted which should be at all events adequate to
the maintenance of the decencies of family life, and that
there should be fixity of tenure, that is, that the curate
should not be liable to arbitrary dismissal at the will of his
incumbent As to the first of these claims, we must under
stand that it is made on behalf of the older members of
the body of curates — for, as a matter of fact every man who
holds a living at all — with a very few exceptions, growing
annually fewer — every beneficed clergyman has been a
curate, ordained on a title to a curacy, and trained with
some experience of a curate's life. Bishops do not pass over

CHURCH PATRONAGE 267
old curates in order to appoint young ones to benefices,
unless the latter have distinct qualifications which the
former have not ; chiefly, I should imagine, that of adapt-
ableness to new fields and methods of work. But in
this article of promotion there is a great deal of exaggera
tion ; I have gone through the list of appointments which
I have made to the livings in my gift since I became Bishop
of Oxford — dividing them into cases of vacancy by resigna
tion, death, and promotion by other patrons. There seem
to be about fifty altogether, many of them caused by my
removing men to other livings ; in nearly every such case
of a normal vacancy a curate has been nominated to the
vacant living, or to that which the removal of the previous
incumbent has made vacant. I cannot say that it has
been so in all cases, because in some the benefice was so
poor that I could not find a man to undertake it, without
going outside the diocese; but in the great majority it has
been so; and where it has not been so, that is where I
have removed an incumbent into another living, in the end
a curate has been appointed, I imagine in the long run, in
every case. For every definite normal vacancy a curate
has been promoted, for the very sufficient reason that there
was nothing but a curate to promote.
It is grievous to have to think of the cases in which
parishioners have taken on themselves to dictate to the
patrons the appointment of curates to the benefices in
w^ich they have served ; more grievous when they them
selves ask for it I need hardly say that such instances,
although rare, are not unknown. It may be said in
defence of them that such petitions are a natural way
in which parishioners can testify their sense of the curate's
merits, and that this is the idea, rather than the desire,
of securing his continued services. If so, little weight
need be attached to such memorials. But certainly the
cases in which a patron will be wise in accepting the
suggestion are few and far between. Almost invariably
the growth of personal partisanship is promoted by such
things, and difficulties sown in the way of the new in
cumbent whether the curate succeeds or no.

268 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
I do not see how the matter could have been mended
by passing over the claims of hardworking incumbents
simply because they were incumbents ; and offering every
thing in the first instance to a curate simply because he
was a curate. I adduce my own experience in this matter,
because I am patron of a larger number of livings than
anyone else in the diocese; but I feel that my conclusion
must be modified by the fact that a very large proportion
of the benefices in the diocese are very poor, and that
poor incumbents who are qualified for the posts to which
I remove them, have, as I have said, so far as claim is
concerned, as good a claim for consideration as ^ny curate
could make.
And this consideration affects also the second demand,
that is, for an adequate sustentation. So far as my ex
perience goes, a good curacy is a better and more satis
factory sustentation than a poor incumbency. But I need
not enlarge upon this ; I quite agree that both curates
and poor incumbents do deserve and require improved
incomes. 1 think that the answer will have to be found
in a well -sustained national effort for all; I hope that
the remedy will not be sought, as it certainly will not
be found, in the direction of a class agitation.
Incumbents and Curates.
The third claim, for fixity of tenure, is in its nature
more serious; it its practical bearing it has less real im
portance, and demands less sympathy on general grounds.
It is of absolutely essential importance that in a parish
where the assistance of a curate is required, there should
be entire working sympathy between curate and incum
bent The responsibility must lie with the man who has
the cure of souls, and the administration of the work in
church and out must be directed by him. If the working
sympathy is there, there will be an approach to equality —
that is, the curate will remonstrate if he sees anything
wrong, advise if he sees how things can be improved,
submit to the superior authority on matters in which his
advice is not taken; but the incumbent will also advise

INCUMBENTS AND CURATES 269
and take advice, and gladly accept such improved methods
as the younger man has learned to be desirable. But if
they differ to a degree in which working sympathy is
impossible, the Bishop cannot arbitrate in disputes where
the status of disputants is so conditioned ; they must
separate. The existing law makes it easy; beyond the
rule of the existing law, fixity of tenure is impracticable.
The incumbent may, with the Bishop's leave, give six
months' notice to the curate ; the curate, with the same
leave, can give three ; the Bishop will probably advise
that where the breach is irreparable the time should be
shortened. I do not think that he can wisely refuse the
permission to give the notice, nor do I think that any
appeal or substitution of another authority for the Bishop's
would be of any avail. No parish can be worked with a
divided command, or without cordial relation. It does not
follow that the incumbent is always in the right, but unless
he is so far in the wrong as to subject himself to legal and
canonical animadversion, he must be allowed to hold his
own. The curate has his advantage in giving way : how
ever completely he may be in the right in the matter of
difference, he cannot maintain a position which is irrecon
cilable with the proper authority of the incumbent and
the working of the parish. Fixity of tenure would mean
parochial paralysis by party welfare. He is very ill-advised
if he misuses his advantage and tries to pose as a martyr,
or to maintain as a grievance the solution of a temporary
contract which the law has made easy for him. In cases
in which the difference between the two clergymen arises
from misconduct, or eventuates in conduct for which the
curate's licence has to be revoked, he has his right of
appeal to the Archbishop of the province ; when that is
done he has, of course, ample means for ventilating his
grievance and extenuating his offence, but there is a woe
unto those by whom such offences come, which we do well
to look at all round. I see no possibility of any such fixity
of tenure for curates as is contemplated. I have spoken
at length about this because two or three cases, which have
come before me in my diocesan work, have shown that

270 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
there are misunderstandings in the matter which it is as
well to put an end to. I need not add that the good
offices of Bishop and Archdeacon may always be used to
reconcile reconcilable disputes, or to arbitrate on matters
capable of arbitration, but that neither reconciliation nor
arbitration will suffice to restore the sympathetic working
of two men in one parish where it has so far broken down
as to call for such manipulation.
Clerical Poverty.
Another point, which is closely connected with the
matter I am speaking of, and which forces itself very
sensibly upon us from day to day, is the increasing cry
of clerical poverty. I have nothing new, and nothing
more comforting to say upon the subject than that I really
believe that the Church laity are beginning to realise the
state of things, and to see that the ancient endowments
of the Church neither are, nor are capable of being made,
sufficient for the present occasions. They are beginning
to see that a general effort must be made to provide a
central fund ; I believe that they are trying to devise the
best means for securing such a provision and of administer
ing it to the greatest effect.
It has long been clear that the local and temporary
efforts that are made can meet only local and temporary
emergencies. The revenues at the disposal of the Ecclesi
astical Commissioners are being very rapidly appropriated
in perpetuity, and, at no very distant time, the sources
from which any increase of such income could be looked
for will be exhausted. The value of tithe and the rent
of glebe are falling, or fallen so low, that even the few
well -endowed benefices — I speak mainly from the ex
perience of my two dioceses — even the well-endowed bene
fices that still subsist can do little more than meet their
actual expenses. In a great many parishes the reduction
or absolute loss of income from lands unlet and tithes
unrecovered places the clergyman in a condition in which
he is unable to minister at all to the temporal wants of
his people. The average, or I should say, recognised

CLERICAL POVERTY 271
normal stipend of an assistant curate, ;^iSO, is beyond
what in a great number of livings the incumbent has to
meet all the demands that charity, and I may say even
honest payment of his bills, make upon him. It follows,
as we know well, that in very many cases the parish work
is carried on by the clergyman on the support of his
private fortune ; and I thank God that in this diocese I
have the help of very many men who are glad to con
tribute in this way to His service. But it is not fair that
we should have to depend upon this. And it is not wise
to depend upon its continuing to be so.
I remember, more than twenty years ago, at the Church
Conference at Leeds, having to point this out. Fifty years
ago the clerical profession was regarded as a profession in
a temporal sense remunerative : wealthy men educated
their sons for good livings ; and men of moderate means
and aims worked hard to provide means for a son or two
who showed leanings in the right direction to go to the
University and prepare himself for a life that had a good
deal of promise for prudent, faithful, loyal service. Of
course, we all know that there were sad drawbacks in
many cases, and that the scandals that occurred, when and
where the speculation failed, were not a few : but on the
whole they were exceptional. The young men were, as
a rule, trained to maintain such moral and social standard
of living as would not disgrace the calling for which
they were intended ; they had constantly before them the
prospect of a life full of spiritual work and obligation ;
and I believe that I am justified in saying that, in the
result, this professional view of their parents produced
for the Church a large, a very large number of devoted
servants ; many of whom have lived to recognise that
their parents' views were far too sanguine, to realise the
happiness of being able to spend as well as be spent for
the work of the Church, and help to keep in countenance
and to sustain their poorer brethren. That sort of idea
is a thing of the past; no parent, out of mere prudent
foresight of worldly prospects, would now think of bring
ing up a son as a clergyman. We see, how, unhappily,

THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
family livings are forced into the market, and we pity the
mistaken parents that make for their children such fatal
investments. The destruction of the poor is their poverty,
and the destruction of a good many people who are not
poor is in the misuse of the means they take to avoid it.
Well, I am thankful to say, this is not an exhaustive
statement ; happily, whether or no their parents do it for
them, still many young men who have worldly means are
willing to devote themselves and their fortune to the good
work, and such devotion is in itself better than the other.
But it is a quantity and quality that cannot be brought
under practical calculation. In a general way, the clergy
are poorer men, and clerical prospects are poorer prospects
than they have been for a hundred years. There are fewer
and fewer clergymen who can, and fewer and fewer benefices
that will enable their incumbents to, educate their children
in the same way that they were educated themselves ; and
this surely is the minimum that an average professional life
should offer.
Episcopal Incomes.
It is, I fear, hardly decorous for me, speaking to a number
of men who know these things and feel with me, to advert
to the constant reproach that we hear from men and parties,
who assail us with the demand for the redistribution of
ecclesiastical revenue, on the plea, as it would seem, that
the value of all men's services is much the same, and
that Bishops and Deans and Chapters should be reduced
to stipends and salaries that would leave a large margin
for the equilisation of parochial incomes. I think that,
after ten years of an episcopal income, I can truly say,
and am justified in saying it, that it does not place its
earner in a position that on pecuniary grounds is to be
coveted ; his income may be increased sevenfold, his liabil
ities are increased seventy-and-sevenfold ; when the abso
lutely inseparable charges and obligations are satisfied, the
man who holds it finds himself, as the successful lawyer
when he becomes a judge, considerably poorer than he
might fairly reckon on being if he had chosen to retain

REFORM OF CONVOCATION 273
the way of making his own living, which, supposing him
to be a person qualified for his post, he may be understood
to have held before promotion. The appropriation of the
income of the see of Oxford to the increase of parochial
incomes in the diocese would add an average sum of some
£7 \os. to each ; and that would, of course, mean the
cessation of such work and help as the Bishop, who, on
the theory of our critics, is an unnecessary excrescence
in other respects, is expected to provide. I need not
dilate on this ; for indeed, as you know, these speculations
on the wealth of the Bishops and Chapters are all calcula
tions on the theory that such officers are not only un
necessary, but mischievous parts of ecclesiastical machinery;
with such a prejudice you, I conceive, have no sympathy.
Reform of Convocation.
Of the points of constitutional interest, then, which are
put forward in the tentative projects of Church Reform
I will mention the Reform of Convocation and the scheme
for altering the mode of appointment of Bishops.
It is not necessary for me to notice the proposal to
introduce laymen into the body of the Convocations,
further than by pointing out that such a measure would
destroy the essential and historical character of the institu
tion, which, if it is worth preservation at all, can only be
maintained as the representative council of the spiritualty.
That the Church should have a council in which the
learned and faithful laity should have their place and
weight, may well be an object of desire ; it may be grow
ing up in the association of the Houses of Laymen with
the Convocations, or in the central committee of diocesan
conferences, but it must be allowed time for growth and
consideration, and not be adopted as an experiment of
tentative reform.
Union of Two Houses.
Of the idea of uniting the two Convocations in one con
sultative or quasi-legislative body, I have spoken my mind
at considerable length at diverse times ; I will not repeat

274 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
myself now. I believe that the practical benefits of such
co-operation as is requisite can be secured without de
parture from constitutional precedent, and are being
realised now in the sympathetic mutual confidence of the
two provincial assemblies.
The point, however, which is most prominent at this
moment is the possibility of changing the system of re
presentation in the Lower House of Canterbury, in such
a way as to insure a more perfect, a more truly representa
tive assembly of the clergy. I do not myself feel any
special hardship in the present arrangement, by which the
Deans, Archdeacons, Capitular, and Parochial Proctors are
regarded as sufficient I have no objection to the existence
of official members like the Deans, who represent a good
deal of ecclesiastical learning and authority as well as a
side of Church polity on which the State is supposed to
have a special influence and interest ; or of the Capitular
Proctors, some twenty or thirty men of experience,
mature age, and knowledge of the world as well as of the
Church, gained chiefly in parochial work of the past ; nor
of the Archdeacons, who add to those qualifications the
traditions and experiences of the several administrations
of the Bishops who have appointed them ; nor do I think
that a couple of diocesan Proctors may not be as satis
factory a representation of the parochial clergy as half a
dozen. But then, you see, I do not regard the exclusively
elective character of representation as the sole requisite
for such an assembly as Convocation ; and I do think
authority of learning and experience as important as that
of delegation to express other men's wishes. Still, I see
that there are anomalies ; and that, where a diocese sends
up three Archdeacons to represent authority, it should not
be restricted to two Proctors to represent counsel and con
sent of the body of the diocese. I think, therefore, that
a reform which would enable the Archdeaconries, as is the
case in the northern province, to return two Proctors a
piece would be a fair reform — not as being a more proper
delegation than the present, nor merely as an increase
in the numbers and possibly also of the influence of

UNION OF TWO HOUSES 275
Convocation, but simply as giving fairer proportion to
the expression of the wishes of the living and acting
clergy. Whether this could be done without an Act of Parlia
ment is a moot point. The relations of the Convocations
to Parliament are complicated in an historical point of
view ; and in all dealings with the Parliament, which have
for two centuries been very few and far between, a curious
historical and personal jealousy has increased the complica
tions. And there have been difficulties between the Upper
and Lower Houses of Convocation themselves which have
always prevented any such cordial presentment of solid
arity as would preclude objection on the part of Parlia
ment to recognise rights in Convocation. It is true that
the Archbishops are, to all appearance, the authority by
which the composition of the representative assemblies of
the clergy is to be determined, when under the royal
summons the Convocations are called together ; and the
Crown lawyers lay great weight on custom as deciding in
what way the authority of the Archbishops can and cannot
be varied. The theory also that in this province the
representative system is a matter of canon, which cannot
be altered, in pursuance of the Submission of the Clergy
made in 1532 — although in the province of York there is
no show of such canon, and in that of Canterbury no such
text is producible — this theory, combined with the validity
of custom, is adduced to prove that a constitutional ampli
fication by the Archbishop's sole power would be insuffi
cient, and that the Parliament would not be justified in
regarding as Convocation a body so modified. It may be
said, and said truly, that, as matters stand now, it matters
little what the Parliament would think of the change, for
the occasions on which it recognises Convocation are so
few and of so little importance ; but it will not do for us
to consider that as an argument. There are many signs,
in these days, of change in the attitude of Parliament and
in the administration of parliamentary business by devolu
tion or committee, not to speak of local subdivision. And
in the view of even a bare possibility that, by-and-by,

276 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
some recognition of the voice of the Church in Convoca
tion will be a necessity for Parliament itself, it is well to
be on the safe side. There is a Bill now in circulation,
the Rubrics Bill, to which I have had occasion to call your
attention in another section of my charge, in relation to
which it will be of vital importance that the Convocation
should have parliamentary recognition, and that definite.
Any modification, I conclude, whether or no it may be
introduced on grounds of history, constitutional law, or
political equity, if it is to be such that the State can regard
the Convocation so modified as a true Convocation, will
demand at least a strong affirmation of legality by the
advisers of the Crown, and possibly a declaratory Act of
Parliament. The risks and dangers of such experiments
it is not for me to explain at length. They are great ;
whether they are too great it will be for younger and wiser
heads than mine to determine. I think it extremely
probable that I shall be regarded, in saying this, as truck
ling to the opinion of lawyers, and not having courage to
urge the importance of desirable reform in the face of
their objections. I cannot say that I much mind the
reproach ; the Parliament and the Crown, when they find
that they have to deal with the Church in Convocation,
will certainly not allow the determination of the definition
of the body with which they have to deal to be settled by
the clergy alone ; and if they once get their hands at
work for the remodelling of the body which they will
recognise as Convocation, we cannot be very hopeful as
to the nature, or minimum, or maximum, of change.
However, all I would urge is an attempt, before anything
else is done, to secure such a concordant action between
the strong powers in Church and State as will make and
be content with necessary changes.
Election of Proctors.
This consideration must be applied also to any project
for giving the unbeneficed clergy votes in the election of
Proctors. Were the Archbishops to take the bold line of
summoning a synod or synods on consistent lines, free

ELECTION OF BISHOPS 277
from the custom and tradition of Convocation, all this
might be easily done, and I do not see who is to hinder
it; but the assembly so called and framed would not
be the historic Convocation. My own interest in this
subject, — the fact that from the revival of Convocation
in 1852 I have been in close association with most of
the movements connected with it, and, owing to my
personal relation with Archbishop Longley, enabled to
study the subject at the fountain head, — must be my
defence if I seem to have discussed the matter at too great
length.
Election of Bishops.
Another point which is urged with more or less persist
ency when Church Reform is in discussion, is the election
of Bishops. The difficulty of reaching a practical solution
of this question has been before the Church from the
remotest antiquity ; some of the most critical events in
the history of ecclesiastical organisation, from the earliest
days of the Church, have resulted from it. Nor is it now
a simple question of setting aside an inferior method
for a superior one, or of a practical one for an ideal. The
reconciliation of authority with freedom ; the selection
from the lower and the authorisation from the higher ;
the balance between experience and experiment ; the
security for impartial administration by men placed in
their authority by party agency ; the continuous missionary
character of the Church, with its distinctly constitutional
status ; these, and very many like considerations, compli
cate any project of change. No plan which presents
any features of cohesion has been as yet proposed as a
substitute for the present one, with all its undeniable
and undenied faults and weaknesses. I do not propose
to go into the history of the processes by which the exist
ing state of the problem was reached, except so far as
to repudiate that common misinterpretation of it, which
is so often accepted without question, that it is an inven
tion of the Anglican Reformation, of Henry VI 1 1, in par
ticular, and that in the execution of the business of election

278 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
forms are used and processes gone through which are open
to the charge of unreality and profanation ; that is, that
Henry VIII. introduced the practice of forcing the electors
to accept his nominees, and that the electors obey the
order and execute it, with religious services implying that
their choice is free, is directed by divine guidance, and
entitled to respect as an authoritative fulfilment of Church
law. This misrepresentation adds an element of odium
and reproach to the hardship, if it be regarded as a hard
ship, which consists in the compulsion which is of the
theory of the existing law.
The ideal theory of the election of Bishops is that they
should be elected by the dioceses over which they are
to preside, and receive their authority from the metro
politan and comprovincial Bishops. From very early
ages the diocesan power of election fell into the hands
of the clergy of the dioceses, and, from the beginning of
the Middle Ages, into the hands of the Chapters of the
churches in which the Bishop's throne was set up, and
which were the mother churches of their dioceses. There
is no occasion to go further back than this ; we have to
deal with the organisation of national Churches, and
that in a quarter of the world in which all national
Churches were organised in much the same way. In
England we need go no further back than the Norman
Conquest. Since that time the course of events has been
clear ; before that time, so far as the few incidental illus
trations of the matter have come to us, much the same
condition of affairs existed. The era of the Conquest
was, however, the era of the development of the canonical
Chapters; and they and the monastic Chapters, which
already existed in strength, claimed and maintained the
right of election of the Bishops. But this very same
era saw also the legal development, both of the papal
power under Gregory VII. and of that feudal idea which
construed the possession of temporal possessions as a
matter of regulation by the King and his Courts. So
the King, as well as the clergy of the Chapters, and the
Pope, with his assumed right of arbitrating on all ques-

ELECTION OF BISHOPS 279
tions, come as rival agencies into a very critical field of
struggle. Throughout the Middle Ages the appointment
of Bishops was the bone of contention between these
three. The scheme, the legal rules, the very ritual of
ideal canonical election subsisted ; the question was, who
should nominate the person to be elected, and who should
enforce, recognise, and authorise the acceptance of the
elect. For two centuries from the Conquest the Chapters
contested the right of the Crown to dictate, by methods
direct or indirect, the choice of the electors ; numerous
appeals went to Rome, and the great majority of them
were decided in favour of the King's nominees; a consider
able number ended in the rejection of both sets of candi
dates and the nomination of a new candidate ; in very
few cases indeed were the rights of the Chapters regarded.
In the fourteenth century the rights of the Chapters
drop almost out of sight, and the very forms of election
are mainly kept alive by the processes for choosing Abbots
and Deans, in churches where it was not worth while
for the two rival powers to quarrel or interfere. From
the fourteenth century onward, the appointments were,
as a rule, debated between the Crown and the Papacy ;
where they agreed, the Pope nominated the King's can
didate by an act of provision, or the King accepted
the Pope's candidate so provided. Sometimes the form
of provision supplied all the defects of canonical election ;
sometimes the whole process was transacted by the regular
forms of acclamation, compromise, or scrutiny, as if it
were actually spontaneous. It is not easy to disentangle
the exact procedure in all cases ; but the canonical idea
was not lost sight of, nor the form of election forgotten.
The King, when there was an election, issued his conge
ddire, the Chapter met to elect, a royal letter was pro
duced, recommending an eligible person, and the person
so named was elected and presented to the Archbishop
for consecration. Any person acting in contempt of the
royal letter, and in dependence on any support from
the Pope or outside authority, was liable, under the letter
of the Acts of Praemunire and Provisors, to be put out

280 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
of the King's protection, and suffer forfeiture and imprison
ment. This was the state of things on which Henry VIII.,
in the Statute of Annates, 25 Henry VIII. c. 20, set the
definite seal of legislation ; he simply put down in black
and white and made it an Act of Parliament, a condition
of things already long in existence, out of which he had
to eliminate the papal element. He contented himself
with eliminating it ; the process of appointment, defined
in that Act, overthrown under Edward VI. by a plan
of nomination by letters patent, — eliminating the very
shadow of election or the rights of chapters, — and restored
in the first year of Elizabeth, is still the law of the land
as it was before the rule and custom of the Church. It
is the resultant of several conflicting forces, rights, privi
leges, usurpations, and compromises, but it was no novelty
of the Reformation, and, if to be called a novelty of
the Reformation adds an odium to the abuse, it is not
obnoxious to that charge. It is anything but a perfect
or logical system, but it works. Nothing that has any
appearance of practicability in our own national Church
system has been proposed to take its place ; and no
examples from the practice of foreign Churches promise
more in the direction of independent, spontaneous, and
united action.
Nor can it be said that it is by any Tudorian assumption
of the headship or supreme governorship, that the nomi
nating power is exercised as a personal rather than as a
constitutional right of the Crown. It existed and was
admitted before that theory of personal headship was
formulated; and it was always maintained by those who
did formulate it that it was a constitutional intrinsic right
of the King's, on which the papal interference was a usurpa
tion. Anyhow, it is certain that both before and after the
Reformation, under Henry VI., as well as under William
III., the appointments were deliberated in council, and
under the latter sovereign by a commission of episcopal
advisers, whose position, however constitutional or un
constitutional, helped to avert the nomination of personal

ELECTION OF BISHOPS 281
and party favourites; for which result even Bishop Burnet
may have some credit.
In what I have said I have not, you will understand,
attempted more than to show that the existing arrange
ment is no Reformation, Tudorian, or Anglican novelty.
I do not claim for it perfection or finality. It has worked
evil, as in the case of Hoadly, as it has worked good in the
case of Butler. There is a good providence of Almighty
God which overrules the evil and leads on the good to that
which is better. We wait for that, now as ever.
The second reproach to which I have referred is that, in
the transaction of the process of election, there is a mockery
of divine service in the use of prayers for guidance and invo
cation of the Holy Ghost, when the purpose for which the
guidance of the Holy Ghost is asked is already determined.
I do not believe that this is done at all, although I do believe
that, private and seldom as the occasions of election are,
words may be said and forms used on which malicious con
struction may be put. I cannot imagine any case of the
kind in which divine guidance may be more lawfully asked :
a divine blessing on a process each step of which may be
believed to have been carefully taken. The use of the
Veni Creator is not out of place, even where, as in the case
of our own ordinations, every detail of determination, ex
amination, preparation, has been most completely arranged :
we ask guidance, protection, sustentation, under conditions
which are practically settled before the rite commences. It
is as reasonable to object to the use of the hymn at the con
secration as at the election of the Bishop, if the default of
fitness lies in the predetermination of the act on which the
blessing is implored. That the intervention of the Holy
Spirit is taken for granted in one or all of the three methods
of election is surely no strange doctrine to those who
believe that all good counsels, as well as holy desires and
just works, come from Him. It is well that these things
should be made clear, and that charity should guide us in
judgment when they are not so clear as we should like to
have them. Half, if not all, the misrepresentations on
these points disappear on a very little careful research.

282 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
Pastoral Work.
There are some few subjects upon which I must repeat
some of the cautions or remonstrances which I have tried
in my former charges to administer, without that imperious
and egotistic dogmatism with which, notwithstanding, I
have so often been credited. As I have said, 132 benefices
have changed hands since 1893; and 132 clergymen or
more are not to be left in ignorance of the mind of the
diocesan on any point that may seem to him, or to them,
of real importance.
(a) Visiting.And first I am told that among the younger clergy
there are some who require to be reminded of the extreme
importance of pastoral visitation and school work. I think
that this can scarcely be the case with any whom I have
myself ordained, and who have listened at all to the
admonitions which they have received during the pre
paratory days immediately preceding the ordination. I am
told that there is an idea that work in church, or in the
study, is the work to which all other engagements and
obligations are to give way ; that the priest's office is there,
to celebrate, and preach, and advise; that time spent in
visitation, except visitation of the sick, is a frivolous ex
penditure on the priest's part ; and that, although the work
of the school in its religious side must of necessity be kept
in view, the personal participation of the vicar or curate is
rather in the way, and does no special good either to the
children, or to the teachers, or to himself This is of course
an extreme way of putting things. Now I would not say
a word that would discourage any young clergyman from
holding the most serious view of his own position, the
dignity and weightiness of the charge which he has under
taken; nor would I suggest even that he should try to
minimise the cogency of his duty or the privilege of his
service in church. I would encourage the multiplication of
opportunities in which the priest can lead the devotion, or
minister to the spiritual wants of his people in the sanctuary.
But we must remember that if the people are to be helped,

VISITING 283
they must be taken care of and taken hold of Nothing is
so forlorn as a Church in which the priest has no hold on
his people. He must know them individually, if he is to
know them collectively ; he must know them in their own
houses, if he is to know them in church ; he must know
them in their temporal circumstances, if he is to know them
in their spiritual ones; he must earn their sympathy by
learning to sympathise with them; and it must be begun
in the ways in which they are accessible — first, that which
is natural; afterwards, that which is spiritual. This, I am
told, is a difficulty : if it is a difficulty which is not over
come by the young curate at once, it will never be overcome;
and if it is never overcome, the great pastoral work to which
he is sent, for which he is blessed and gifted, to which he
is most solemnly bound by his own promise and by the
charge of his commission, will be left undone: and what
must the result be in himself, as well as in the flock for
which he may be said, in this aspect of his life, to exist?
Surely he justifies the opinion of those who accuse him of
that favourite sin of sacerdotalism — a reproach founded,
one would think, on the character of the certain priest, who
came down that way, " and, when we saw him, passed by
on the other side." Oh, that was the case with the
plundered and wounded man on the way from Jerusalem
to Jericho ! Yes, and I fear that there are many left half-
dead, much nearer home than that, in every parish —
neighbours who do not show their wounds until they know
the man to whom they may appeal for counsel and cure,
but who are very visible to all who are willing to see.
My own advice to the beginner — and it is advice which
will be useful to him long after he has familiarised himself
with the work, its pleasantness as well as its labour — is, at
the very first introduction to your district, to take a book,
like the school-attendance book, with columns for names
and dates ; and make a census of your district ; mark the
date of every visit, and visit regularly, as often as the
claims of your population demand, never letting more
than the proportional number of days or weeks pass
between the two visits ; then visit, not by house-row, like

284 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
a distributor of tracts or a collector of rates, but with
a distinct individualising of every visit. Give a recognised
number of hours in the day to it ; and whilst you watch
for every opportunity of saying a word of good in season,
do not run into the danger of using or inviting cant
and hypocrisy; give way to yourself in the interest that the
flock you are serving will inspire as soon as you know one
another ; let them see that you are a friend without think
ing it necessary to be telling them so, and know you as a
minister of God without your constantly asserting your
dignity as a priest : your dignity is in doing the will of
Him who sends you : the dignity, the blessedness of the
shepherd, is in holding the flock for Him who commits it
to the charge of the servant.
Well, there are other ways of learning, ways which
any experienced parish priest who has fought the battle, for
and with himself, can set before his curate — only let it be
done from the first. It cannot be dispensed with. No fine
preaching or consummate organising, no mission agitating,
or lecturing, or addressing, will do what has to be
done, without this individualising of the flock which can
only be worked by regular and carefully minded, sympa
thetic visits. I need not say more about the visitation
of the sick : that in some aspects may seem harder to
learn, but only experience will teach it ; and I have no
reason to believe that labour is begrudged in this : only
in this point do not wait to be sent for. You will not as
a rule need the summons, for you will, if you have taken
my advice, be among the first to know the circumstances
and the need.
(ff) Schools. The same principle must underlie the usefulness of
the young clergyman's work in schools : he will not have,
indeed, the same liberty of opportunity, he cannot choose
his times of teaching or multiply the occasions, that
may make it easier for him to be regular. But there is
the key to usefulness — regularity and the labour to indi
vidualise. Of the work itself I need not speak, either of

PUBLIC MATTERS 285
the religious teaching in class, or the special training
of pupil teachers where the clergyman is able to under
take it : that I am sure is a matter on which no man's
conscience can let him rest, who has the opportunity.
Only one word about the teachers : recognise their office
and dignity as fellow-workers; and do it, not by con
descending and patronising ways, but by cordially enter
ing into their thoughts and interest ; they will teach you
much, probably much more than you can teach them ; for
they can help you to be regular and to individualise, for it
is a matter of recognised necessity with them, and you
may learn their methods with great advantage to your
selves. But remember that in school they are the
principals of authority, and you must respect their
authority and make it respected ; much of your work, you
will find, will have to depend on their help, and on their
understanding you. You must help, try to understand,
and, as you will both love the children, try to do it without
jealousy, or selfishness, or favouritism, without partiality,
and without hypocrisy.
Public Matters.
And here I should like to put in a consideration, which
may not be necessary for you just now and here, but
which seems to me to be involved in all attempts at
thorough work. I mean the importance of observing a
due proportion in working ; and that especially in relation
to public measures and upon what are called popular ideas.
I will mention such, for instance, as the temperance
question, the vigilance or purity question, the peace and
arbitration question, the social -economical question, and
I will add — meaning, I am sure, no disparagement of its
importance — such questions as that of the Armenian perse
cution. There are others of the sort. I only give these as
instances. Each of these is a question of far wider interest
than the name implies; each point is bound up with a
number of others, the bearing of which is a natural and
necessary condition of its proper importance. Temper
ance, soberness, and chastity, peace on earth and good will

286 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
towards men, are distinctly parts of primary Christian
morality, not to be isolated, as if each or any were the
great commandment of the law. Each of these is a matter
of public and political import, and as such a matter on
which party organisations are framed, party watchwords
invented, and partisan methods of reproach adopted, as if
the advocates believed that they were the only people who
cared about these things, and their way the only way in
which evils could be met or reforms attempted. Under
these conditions, there must be a division of labour for
the carrying on of requisite agitations and the raising of
funds for the several purposes in hand, and a certain
element of competition and conflict And there is no doubt
that the zeal of the clergy in good works and their general
standard of good behaviour qualify them very well for
acceptable service in such ways ; especially men who have
the gift of speaking, or who have such other popular gifts
as are found useful.
There is a snare, however, in all this which, unless you
guard against it, destroys the proportion of work. I con
ceive myself bound to give a strong caution. It is not
good for a parish priest to sink his character of parish
priest in that of a temperance advocate, or a peace advo
cate, or a denunciator of economical fallacies, or as a
promoter of agitation about oppressed causes. Let him
do what he can for his cause consistently with his main
tenance of the other causes which, in loyalty to his people,
he is bound equally to maintain ; but if he finds that
he must give himself wholly to this one aspect of work, let
him give up the post that he is so tempted to neglect, and
make the other the substance of his service. Then there
is the temptation to political partisanship in reference to
these causes. I do not object to a clergyman having
strong political views. I have them myself— beliefs rather
than views— and I wish that all my brethren had the
same, as all politicians really do wish, unless they regard
politics as a game of skill. If a clergyman, by his main
tenance of the good cause he has at heart, lets himself
become the tool of a party with which that good cause

EVENING COMMUNION 287
only represents a useful fulcrum for affecting the balance
of public opinion ; if he risks doing this by a dispropor
tionate treatment of his work inside or outside church, he
is in danger of finding all his life's devotion wasted, his
motives interpreted by their results, not by his intention
and his usefulness, the debt that he owes to his Lord and
his people utterly ruined. Believe me, I know what I am
speaking about, and, recognising to the full the importance
of having the Church and her ministers well forward in
every good word and work, at the same time earnestly
deprecate this side of religious agitation. It is this feeling
which has led me to discourage the assigning and setting
apart of certain Sundays, as Peace Sundays, Temperance
Sundays, Unity Sundays, and such like. Temperance,
peace, and unity are objects of the most careful and
earnest consideration and prayer, but I cannot make the
Sunday service of God a mere weapon of disproportionate
agitation, any more than I would encourage a parish
priest, at the cost of his parish work and of the proportion
of his religious teaching, to become the mere instrument of
a social movement. I may be wrong, I am pretty sure to
be misinterpreted, but I try to tell you what I mean ; and
I am sure that your own experiences will furnish you with
examples that may well be warnings.
I shall be told that I discourage zeal. Well, zeal with
out proportion, and not according to knowledge, is not the
sort of thing that I should care to encourage. Zeal, even
without knowledge, is better than apathy, and a clergyman
who does nothing is worse than the one who does some
thing, though not wisely. True, but I am not supposing
myself to be speaking of or to clergymen who are apathetic
and care to do nothing. I should scarcely think such men
worth speaking to, as I am trying to speak now.
There are two or three things which, as I am speaking
about parochial work, I will note here.
Evening Communion.
I must repeat what I have said on former occasions
about the practice of Evening Celebrations of the Holy

288 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
Communion. I do, in the most sincere earnestness, de
precate the introduction of controversial arguments and
controversial practices into the region of the sacraments ;
and more especially into the administration of that which,
in all Churches and religious communities throughout the
whole world, is believed to be the highest of the means of
grace, and at the same time the most typical and sub
stantive expression of the union of the faithful. In this
diocese. Evening Communion is the rare exception to very
general practice. I believe that both Bishop Wilberforce
and Bishop Mackarness did their utmost to discourage it ;
and before Bishop Wilberforce's time it was practically
unknown. I am urging no novelty, nor issuing any arbit
rary mandate, when I say that I most earnestly hope that
no new attempt will be made to introduce it, and that
where it has been tried and failed, it will be allowed to
disappear. Where it has been tried and not failed, I wish
to urge nothing peremptory ; in such cases a consideration
has to be taken as to the balance of good or bad conse
quences that would be likely to follow on any enforcement
of a rule. I do not dream of enforcing a rule. Practically
my action is confined to dissuasion and remonstrance.
And I am not ignorant, either, of the authority and
argument by which the practice has been and is sustained;
indeed I believe that in many cases the adoption of it has
been pressed owing to the very strength of the belief in
the necessity of the sacrament for salvation, and the desire
to bring in to the Table of the Lord every sort and con
dition of Christian people who, by any arrangement, can
be so brought in, "that My House may be filled." But,
with all this before me, and a mind open to what has been
said on both sides, and with a very earnest desire to avoid
even the appearance of trying to make my opinion a law
to others, I am convinced that the usage is out of accord
with the spirit of our religious habit, with the whole tone
of our services, with the almost universal feeling of the
clergy of the diocese and of most other dioceses, and with
the ancient tradition of the Church. If anywhere, as has
been reported, this practice has been introduced as a mark

FASTING COMMUNION 289
of sectarian or party zeal, I regard such introduction as
nothing less than a profanation, scarcely less than a
sacrilege. Fasting Communion.
And the same I must say about the peremptory enun
ciations which are sometimes reported on the subject of
Fasting Communion. I believe that the eariy morning
is the proper time for Communion, when the mind is free
and rested, and no special interference with devout thought
or condition is to be apprehended from the condition of
the body, from either repletion or want of sustenance.
I believe that, where that is impossible, the Communion
following Morning Prayer, when the first and unavoidable
worries of morning letters have passed away, has very
peculiar advantages in the freedom of thought, the possi
bility of concentration, the preparation furnished by the
Mattins and sermon, and the absence of any compulsion
of hurry. I do not myself think that the physical con
dition of fasting is necessary for worthy receiving, although
the long and continuous tradition of Church law does
prescribe it — fnos pro lege; that long and continuous
tradition in divers Churches has been largely modified, in
some by the infrequency of actual Communion, non-com
municating attendance being so common ; and in others
the extension of rules of moderate eating and drinking,
practically putting an end to the ancient and mediaeval
practice of fasting in the sense of material abstinence.
And there is further to be considered the risk of deprecia
ting the spirituality of sacramental agency in the minds of
the half-educated ; a risk which tells in two opposite ways
alike, I think, in their inconsistency with the scriptural
doctrine of sacraments, as with that of our Prayer Book
and Articles.
In this mind I should protest against the absolute and
intolerant enforcement of a rule which is certainly not of
authoritative institution ; still, more against the idea that
formal abstinence is a sine qua non of worthy receiving ;
and most of all and most especially against the inculcation

290 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
of the idea that mortal sin is incurred by communicating
without previous fast — a previous fast which, so far as its
duration, its physical action on mind and body, and its
legal sanction also, are concerned, seems to be outside
reasonable definition or any uniformity of reasonable rule.
I say this, as of Evening Communion, not in ignorance
of what is and has been said and done, nor, indeed, in
ignorance altogether of what will be said and done, in
reference to this expression of my opinion about these
matters. But I would not have you ignorant of what I
also presume to think is best in accord with faith and
ancient practice.
Sunday Worship.
I very much wish that I could have stopped here, and
been able to omit any further comment on proceedings
connected with ritual. I am most thankful to be able to
believe that, in this diocese, there is a very general accept
ance of the customary interpretation of the law of the
Church in this matter, together with a recognition of the
limits within which attempts at change, development, or
advance, as it is called, can be allowed to work, subject
to the legal restrictions and definitions of competent
authority. And I am also thankful for the way in which
the clergy as a rule have shown themselves loyal to me,
where I have been called on to regulate, or to advise, on
the questions which have from time to time arisen. But
I cannot leave you for a moment in doubt as to my opinion
on the unwisdom of the changes which I see occasionally
attempted, doubtless with the righteous purpose of putting
the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper more promi
nently before the people as the greatest and highest act
of worship, but with the certain result of dragging it
into unwholesome controversy in ignorant or uninformed
opinion. To attenuate the congregational services of Morning
and Evening Prayer ; to put them at inconvenient hours ;
to reduce the solemnity of the Psalms and Lessons ; to
put the General Confession, the prayers and thanksgivings.

SUNDAY WORSHIP 291
distinctly on a lower level than they have been from time
immemorial, is by itself a most unhappy departure from
good rule and precedent, and takes away from ordinary
people a portion of the worship to which they are most
fondly attached, and to which, however disproportionately
they may do it, they cannot possibly ascribe a higher
value than it possesses. This is done, I understand, in
order to throw the celebration of the Holy Communion
into higher relief — a most intolerably unworthy piece of
bad policy. But when it is followed up by the introduction
of musical celebrations, at which the bulk of the congre
gation is expected not to communicate ; when the great
mystery of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of
Christ is transacted before the eyes of the people who are
to take no part in the Communion ; when it is held out
as a form of educating the children in the ritual of the
service, for the teaching familiarity with an ordinance
which is the greatest privilege of the faithful, the dearest
and most solemn approach to the Lord — then I cannot
withhold the severest sentence of disapproval. I shall not
speak more strongly, or I should be unable to restrain
bitter words myself I trust that the clergy who have
been looking in the direction I have spoken of will look
back. If they are loyal they will ; they will not make
of these things party watchwords, or steps of advancing
policy in religious progress, as they may deem it ; they
will not misuse the liberty that we have striven so hard
to secure for them in the vindication of the true interpre
tation of the law of the Church ; they will not drag the
Sacrament through the mire of controversy — a controversy
in which they are guilty who risk dishonour to the Lord's
Body, far more guilty than those who, not discerning it,
cannot be judged as sinning against knowledge and con
science of right, when they use the arguments and impute
the motives of irreverent and profane contention. You
are not showing forth the Lord's death until He come,
but putting before those who are incapable of realising
the occasion, or are prejudiced against the doctrine of
the Sacrament, the temptation to count the blood of the

THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
covenant wherewith ye are sanctified an unholy thing, and
to do despite unto the Spirit of Grace. I do not by any
means say that all this is involved in the practice that I
have referred to, but it is involved in the controversial
dealings to which they give provocation. I am sorry if
what I have said gives pain to any who hear or read my
words. But I am not sent to guide you or to advise you
merely to do the things that you like and as you like ;
one part of my mission is to try at least to set before you
what I have been taught and proved as the good and the
right way, and to warn you against the mischiefs of letting
your good be evil spoken of
Sunday Amusements.
On the subject of Sunday observance, a matter which
has been again brought forcibly before us by the vote in
the House of Commons on the opening of museums, I sup
pose that it is right for me to repeat what I have said on
other occasions.
I have been taught and accustomed to teach that the
obligation of Sunday is discharged by devout worship of
God in especial service, and by abstaining from the worldly
labours, servile or not servile, which constitute the profes
sional work of the week or the manual labour of the week,
or the secular occupation, to put it generally, of the other
six days. The predominant idea is the holiness which is
to pervade both the worship and the rest. I cannot say
that I regard the compulsory abstinence from innocent
amusement, or innocent reading and relaxation, at all a
part of the proper obligation. I cannot say that the
spending an hour in a picture-gallery is at all more, to my
mind, a breach of the observance than the listening for an
hour to an organ recital, or to the reading, by an eloquent
reader, of a sensational book.
In and by itself, disconnected with the idea of imposing
work on the servants of the museums and picture-galleries,
I cannot regard the opening of them or the visiting of
them to be a breach of the religious obligation.
But I am not so sure that the measure is at all a wise

EDUCATION
one, regarded in its bearing on the balance of public opinion,
or on the religious views of people who hold strict opinions
and even convictions upon it. There are, unfortunately,
large classes of well-meaning people in this country to
whom the strict observance of traditional Sunday serious
ness is the most distinct point of religion regarded as
external. It is a grievous thing that they should be shaken
in anything which constitutes a real hold of religious obliga
tion. I do not allege this as a reason for opposing the
change, but as a reason for dealing with it as tenderly as
may be. If the keeping of Sunday is to them the only
outward and visible sign of religion, small as the weight
that can be attached to such a consideration may be, it is
not to be left out of the calculation. There is also the
objection to Sunday labour involved in this ; of which I
_ need say nothing.
Education. On the burning question of religious education it is
perhaps not wise, and it is certainly unnecessary, for me to
speak at any length to you now. It is unnecessary because
you have known my mind on the subject for seven years
and more ; and I know yours, having experience of the
assurance of sympathy and effectual help that I have had
from you during those years, in the attempts to prevent
the transfer of Church schools to school boards in various
parts of the diocese. Those attempts have been, with a
few unfortunate exceptions, very successful. In one or two
cases the transfer has been a matter of absolute necessity,
owing to the very peculiar circumstances of parishes and
the conditions of the existence of the Church schools, such
as the impossibility of securing sites, and the arbitrary
mapping out of school districts. In one or two it has
resulted from definite and blameable laches on the part of
managers, who did not even take the trouble to ask to be
helped. In none, I think, was it the result of that treason
able faint-heartedness which was most to be feared. I
thank most sincerely all who have helped me.

294 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
The Church Catechism.
I said that perhaps it is not wise for me to say much
about the matter now, for .whilst the whole new plan of
the present Government is being debated in and out of
Parliament, it is not quite in order for me to express
peremptory decisions about details ; and further, whilst
the contest is hot, any stray word which in even a visita
tion charge may be rashly uttered, is watched for and
used with controversial colouring and controversial per
tinacity. I need say no more than that the multiplication
of weak arguments against so large a scheme as the
Government scheme seems to be, the multiplication of
weak arguments, urged with the violence with which only
weak arguments can make themselves heard, appears to
me to tell very much in its favour. I will not say more;
but one word against compromise on the great point,
the freedom in schools to teach the Church Catechism.
The present is the third great crisis that I have witnessed
since my ordination, although I am old enough to re
member that first crisis in 1839, which has affected the
balance of opinion and the line of administration through
the other three. There was the long struggle about the
Conscience Clause, in which, whether we were right or
wrong, we were loyal to our convictions so far as, in the
then existing circumstances, convictions could be formu
lated. Second came the struggle of 1870 and the restric
tive formula of the Cowper-Temple Clause, on which a
great part of the difficulties of the last twenty-six years
have turned — a clause which, called and accepted as a
compromise, was never worked as a compromise, was
not a compromise essentially, and in practice had no such
result. The school-board system, anyhow, was only one-
half, and the smaller half, of the administrative system
then adopted ; and yet for it now the title of national
system is freely assumed and exclusively appropriated.
Now we are in a third stage, I pray God a happier one.
We claim that the teaching of the Catechism should not
be forbidden in schools maintained by the payments of
Churchmen. We claim for our children that they shall

THE CHURCH CATECHISM 295
have a conscience clause, and not be restricted to teaching
which, by negation or exclusion, is a compulsory inculca
tion of what we believe to be injurious to their moral and
spiritual welfare.
It has always been a curious question with me what
could be the meaning of the opposition of the Dissenters
to the teaching of the Catechism. It cannot be objection
to the dogma, for there is not a point in the doctrinal
statements of the Cathechism that would not be accepted
by any body of orthodox Dissenters. I can scarcely think
that the Unitarians can class themselves with these, cer
tainly we cannot. It cannot be objection to the morality
of the teaching, for that is simply, clearly, and com
prehensively put, the very basis of all morality, with the
duty towards God as the motive power of the law that
prescribes the morality. To the sacramental teaching of
the opening and finishing questions, with one very clear
and definite exception, that of the Baptists, it is difficult
to say what objections could have been raised at the time
that sectarian differences began the work of dissent. Of
course it is clear that, since these differences developed,
doctrines and practices have been thrown aside by most
of the Dissenting schools which were not the special
objects of their opposition when they were founded; but
that development has been the result of the disuse of
the teaching of the Catechism, not the cause or excuse
or justification of it. In simplicity and definiteness,
merely as a religious composition, this teaching of the
Church compares favourably with any other symbolical
manifesto that we have ever known, Scottish or Genevan,
Lutheran or Tridentine. It is too indefinite for some
schools, but it is not too definite nor too dogmatic for
any school of Christians who hold the validity of the
three formulae on which it is based.
Believing this to be the case, and not believing that
mere definiteness can be made an objection to it by sin
cerely minded people, I am obliged to conclude that it
is the claim to authoritative teaching which is in the mind
of those who, sinking all definite differences in the as-

296 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
sumption of the title of Free Churches, set themselves
in array against it. It is not much of an answer to say
that we are free too, free to assert our respect for authority,
free to declare our debt to the instruction that we have
lived by, free to profess the doctrines of the Church
which, believing it to be the Body of the Lord, we know
to be the presentment of our collective and several life
in Him. It is not much of an answer to say that our
perfect freedom is quite compatible with the service which
we have realised in the experience of our life ; that we
base the vitality of our loyalty on the freedom with which
we have given ourselves to it. We claim our right as
Christians to have our children taught belief, and we
claim our right as Englishmen not to have them taught
to dispense with belief, at the cost of funds of which we
pay so great a part. We claim our right to have religious
teaching, and not to be forced to non-religious teaching,
at our own expense, to our own loss. It is not much of
an answer, but it ought to be sufficient. To our own
questionings and anxieties there is a far more cogent one,
which will suggest itself to all of you.
Let it be recognised that the original offence of the
Catechism is its authoritative character. If that be re
garded by straight-thinking people as an incurable fault,
it is hard to justify any teaching at all on any subject
perhaps, but arithmetic ; and even then children may be
left to their own experience to discover that two and two,
as a rule, if there be such a rule, make four.
It would, I suppose, be called a truism or a platitude if
I were to say that a great deal of the established Noncon
formity of the present day, by which the opposition to our
teaching is fostered, arises from the dislike of authority
more than from any more definite motive, such as
doctrinal or administrative differences. It has been always
so in great measure, and most especially during periods
of great temporal developments and in the classes of
people who have risen and flourished by independent
enterprise. It is not to be wondered at : a man who, by
perseverance, self-reliance, and bold enterprise has made

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 297
his way in the world ; an age which has seen the enormous
progress made by self-help in material things ; — very
naturally extends the action of the self-help, the self-
reliance, the persevering self-will to the region of spiritual
life. Self-made men are very liable to the temptation to
make their own religion, and, unless they have thought-
fulness and knowledge of what the course of religious
thought has been, to formulate their own beliefs in their
own way, to choose for religious companionship one of
the forms of community which offers them the greatest
show of freedom, which makes the least demand of re
striction of that private judgment which, in other regions
of thought, they have learned to trust. There is not in
this sort of Dissent that schismatic element which breaks
from the Church because of a definite renunciation of her
dogmatic teaching : nor of the conservative heredity which,
in the second generation, appears as established Dissent.
Of this we have to take account quietly but earnestly. We
are not to brandish the curse of schism against the one or
the other section of our competitors in the religious arena.
But we are not to conceal our belief, or act as if we did not
hold it, that the teaching we offer is the teaching of the
Lord and His apostles, and of the Church, the pillar and
ground of the truth. We pray that all our people may
accept it as of their own well-weighed and convinced belief
and that their children, from generation to generation, may
hold it fast ; but it is not on their freedom of choice or
faithfulness to that which they have received that we base
the conviction of truth or the duty to teach. It is on the
authority of the Word of God, and on nothing less or
other than the faith once delivered to the saints. Let none
take offence at this, as if it meant offence ; rather let us
work, in meekness and fear, to give a good account of
what we believe, and why we believe it.
Optimism and Pessimism.
There are some thoughts that occur to me, now under
the pressure of overwork, now under the enforced inactivity
that follows overwork, which are painful and oppressive in

298 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
the extreme. I am not, as you are probably aware, a close
student of religious newspapers ; perhaps you may think
that, if I were so, I should attach less importance to the
things that I am referring to. But I do see them from
time to time, and hear the matters discussed in them talked
over not unfrequently. I cannot help inferring, from what
I read and hear, that there are regions of clerical life and
thought in which there is a spirit of discontent and dis
quiet at work, especially amongst the junior clergy. How
far I am to suspect that it works in this diocese, of course,
I cannot say, for if any feel this sort of misgiving, I
should probably be the last person to whom they would
speak of it. I hope that there is little of it, but there can
be no doubt about its existence.
Now, of course, there are two unconstitutional views of
most things, optimism and pessimism. I confess that as
a rule my sympathies are in the direction of optimism,
which certainly gives play to the energies of faith, hope,
and charity, as pessimism does not. But there are many
intermediate states of mind, temporary phases of common
sentiment, and occasional frames and feelings of individual
condition, which may depend on very different causes
from serious thought or conviction. Now the mildest
optimism is fatal when it refuses to recognise abuses that
must be corrected, as the gentlest pessimism is fatal
when it sneers at and discourages everything that tries to
work in hope. And we cannot deal with extremes of
either kind or with the policies that are dictated by either.
Still, the workings of the two influences are not equally to
be disregarded as unpractical ; and of the two, the work
ings of pessimism are both the most dangerous and the
most painful.
Disloyal Use of Words.
In the matters of Church life and work, and religious
thought and relations, there is a line of discontent which
verges on disloyalty. And this is the particular phenomenon
which, in a few words, I wish to comment on : the tendency
to put the lowest estimate on the present, the historical.

DISLOYAL USE OF WORDS 299
the prospective conditions of things ; to impute the lowest
motives to all who have to take public action ; to treat as
cant and unreality the motives and methods of those with
whom you disagree, and to minimise from every point of
view the position and claims of the Church of our baptism.
You cannot fail to have been struck with the disparaging
use of the word Anglicanism in particular : you hear it as
if it necessarily implied narrowness of view and feeling,
self-concentrated isolation, opposition to everything catholic
and primitive, a policy of the most contracted character, a
principle and presentment of unproductive, undeveloping
religious conservatism.
I think that the use of the word, in places where it seems
to mean this, is malignant and unworthy. We might,
I think, remember that it is as Anglicans that we have any
claim to be Catholics at all, and that our hold on the
Church Catholic is by our hold on the Church of England.
But the matter is more serious than the question of misuse
of the word. The word means a great deal, and expresses
a great deal of doctrine, practice, organisation, and historical
experience. Another word that is often so misused as to be brought
into contempt is the word Establishment. It is used as
if the position which the word implies were a disgrace
ful position, as if it implied relations of the Church to
the State of England that are simply derogatory to the
character of the Church as a part of the Body of Christ,
and as if the word itself comprised the whole history of
the Church of England, its constitution, and its organic
working. Nay, we are given distinctly to understand
that the defence of the Establishment of the Church
implies or involves the mere protection of temporal status
and endowment, and carries with it contempt or careless
ness about spiritual things as not worth defending. We
might reflect that, at the lowest idea of the interpreta
tion of the word, it can mean not less than the legal pro
tection of the ways and means that we have of doing the
work of Christ in England, and at the highest it can mean no
more than the recognition of a life, power, duty, and order.

300 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
which the State cannot give or take away, but which it
does acknowledge to be real, and, in that acknowledg
ment, declares the English nation to be Christian and
Catholic. One bad result of the disloyal use of these expressions is
that in common talk Anglicanism is coming to be under
stood as the English religion minus its Catholic elements,
and Establishment the organisation of the Church minus
its spiritual character : two very false uses, you are sure ;
and another is that it puts into the mouth of hostile critics
forms of reproach which are utterly undeserved. It is not
the Romanist alone that sneers at Anglicanism and
Establishment. I remember, a few years ago, when
by the really most liberal of our liberal critics, himself
a Christian and a Churchman, the missionary work of
the English Church was described as an attempt to over
lay or veneer (I do not remember the exact word) — to
veneer the world with effete Anglicanism ; and the other
day we were told by another candid friend that the whole
doctrine of Church Defence was, " No Establishment, no
Gospel." But it is more, I repeat, than a matter of words, even of
the misuse of these two words, when there comes in a dis
loyal element under the mere cynical use of expressions
that ought to be words of loyalty, of honourable history, of
faithful affection, of creative experience, of great and com
prehensive ideas of blessing, of privilege and duty. They
who despise the words even to misuse, are one step from
contempt of the meaning and obligation of the ideas that
are in them. It is, then, not the misuse of the words, but
the disloyalty that that misuse betrays, of which I am say
ing how painful and oppressive the thought of its prevalence
is to me. Let me very briefly indeed — for I think that
what I am going to say will not be any lesson to any of
you — let me very briefly indicate what the nationality of
the Church of England means ; for that is the idea that is
endangered and misapprehended in the disloyalty of
thought and expression.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND'S CLAIMS 301
Church of England's Claims.
The Church of England claims to be a portion of the
Body of Christ — not by way of division or exclusion, but
as a claim of real essential incorporation ; she does not say
to people outside. You are not of the Body, but says to her
own children that they are in the congregation of Christ's
flock ; she believes in the work that Christ is doing by her,
realises her position, and tries to do her duty. It is as so
made members that we believe ourselves to be members
incorporate of the mystical Body of Christ : our place and
portion, our law of duty and belief, our relation to those
around us, our families, parishes, and so on, they being
partakers with us of the same incorporation. We are not
outside this, and our realisation of the fact is expressed in
the Saviour's words, " The kingdom is within you." We
cannot look on the Body, by our membership of which we
live, as if we were mere critics of something that was not a
part of us and we of it. Anything like a faithful recogni
tion of this would preclude a great deal of self-willed
sectarian feeling in the Church : and it would tend to charity
with them that are without, as well as to determination to
try to do our own duty. And it is the want of this realisa
tion that leads to the perversion of English Churchmen to
other communities ; and I hesitate not to say this in refer
ence to the very greatest of the men who in troubled times
have deserted us.
Then this is the Church of our fathers; the religious
organisation by and through which not only has the grace
of God worked life in us, but that by which the experience
of history, doctrine, and discipline has made us what we
are, or rather tried to make us what we ought to be. For
it does not involve any undue respect to the doctrine of
heredity or evolution if we believe that our religious life,
in both internal and external aspects, has been largely
moulded by the experience of the national Church and
the Anglicanism, which has resulted from pre-reformation,
and reformation, and reaction, and restoration, and renova
tion. It has helped to make us what we are, as it has
tried to make us better.

302 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
We do not claim for it perfection, much less infallibility ;
but it does claim from us loyalty and loving obedience,
and earnest work to make better that which needs to be
better, and to put away all that tends to confusion and
disparagement. It requires of us true-heartedness, zeal,
and sympathy ; and refusing them we condemn ourselves.
For we have not chosen it, but it has chosen us, or rather
our Lord has chosen us and our fathers through it, and
will judge us as worthy or unworthy by the standard which
He has so presented to us. We may, we ought to try to
raise the standard, in love, in purity, in faith, in learning,
in mission work, in all that tends to unity of the Spirit
and the bond of peace. For it is our own as we are His.
You may say. How can there be progress, raising of the
standard, or development of good work, without recogni
tion of what needs to be raised and developed ? It is true
the very recognition of weakness is the first step towards
the putting on strength ; but the pessimistic attitude is
content with sneering at the weakness and at the idea of
strengthening at all ; and in the shape of disloyalty it
means desertion for some other form and fashion of belief
and practice, the acceptance of which involves the renuncia
tion of that on which the very claim to Christian liberty as
a fact is based.
The Anglicanism in national Church history means a
good deal if it means all this.
Of the word Establishment I need scarcely say so
much. It means, of course, the national recognition of
our Church as a Christian Church, as the representment
of the religious life of the nation as historically worked
out, and, by the means of property and discipline, enabled
to discharge, so far as outward discharge can insure it, the
effectual performance of the duties that membership of a
Christian Church involves.
It means the national recognition of a system by which
every inch of land in England, and every living soul in
the population, is assigned to a ministration of help, teach
ing, advice, and comfort of religion; a system in which
every English man, woman, and child has a right to the

PARTY WORDS 303
service of a clergyman, and to a home of spiritual life in
the service of the Church. Of course, there are people to
whom this means nothing, and will mean nothing until
they find their need of it ; and that time comes very often
and very convincingly to many who have thought that it
means nothing.
Surely, taken in conjunction with what I have said
about nationality, this means a good deal : something that
is worth defending — something the undervaluing of which
means an undervaluing of privilege and work and duty,
and a carelessness for those to whom the loss of such
organisation of ministration, and of the security which
recognition gives, means a loss of light, culture, and
religious hope, and of all that depends civilly and socially
on such influences.
And one word more : What are the aspirations, the
hopes, ambitions, ideals of those who treat these things
as matters to be scouted and thrown over? What the
experiment for which we are to discard our experience
and the advantage which we have found by it? Is it to
be a dereliction of the duty that we owe to those who are
now living in the influence of the faith and law we live
by ? That is no aspiration ; the very thought of it is
humiliation. Is it to be the emancipation from restrictions
by which our life has been guided ? Is it to be the codifica
tion and coercion of discipline over the freedom which is
necessary for all meritorious or loyal compliance with law ?
Is it to be the relief of the priest from the secular responsi
bilities which are amongst the most important ways by
which he is to help the sanctification of the world ?
Party Words.
It is very painful, in the contemplation of these matters,
to find the use of party watchwords increasing or per
sistently maintained, often by the actual perversion of
meaning, too often by the real dislike of the ideas or
modes of thought which are connected with the words so
misapplied. We know of old the force of the cry, " Clericalism is the

304 THIRD VISITATION CHARGE
enemy," in a neighbouring country. We know the bug
bear that sacerdotalism is in range of English society-sup
porting popular journals. We have experience of the
power that the word sectarianism has in the mouths of
ex-Cabinet ministers, and the charm that the fallacious
" unsectarianism " has in meetings and discourses most
undeniably sectarian. No cause or section of a party
could conscientiously and comfortably acquiesce in the
dictum that by such words they should be justified, and
by such words they should be condemned. Great and
miserable results have proceeded from the misuse of these
and like forms. Clericalism is in France a stigma fatal to
any proposal to which by any straining of language it can
be applied ; and that is to any scheme in which the idea
of religious principle, as implying duty to God as well
as man, can be detected. The charge of sacerdotalism
has, I fear, proved fatal to the influence of many a good
parish priest amongst people who attach very little intelli
gible meaning to the reproach ; and it is not without its
terrors for well-taught people also. An age fertile in the
invention or appropriation of names to stigmatise any
cause that it hates has heaped on this word of honour
a very multitude of burdens. The advocate of religious
education, the opponent of divorce and simony, the main-
tainer of the sanctity of Sunday, are all alike sacerdota-
lists : they may well endure to bear a more cruel stigma
than this — but for a stigma it is meant. The cry of
sectarianism is, as you know, at this moment, being used
by people who would paralyse the exertions of those who
are trying to secure the liberty of religious education,
as we have it in the Catechism.
But it does not follow that the evils to which these
three names are given do not in germ or in energy exist
amongst us. There is a sectarianism which, in the
maintenance of the cause of severance puts out of sight
altogether the main purpose for which religious organ
isation exists. There is a clericalism which loses sight
of the true work and character of the clergyman in the
contemplation of his professional and class character;

PARTY WORDS 305
there is a sacerdotalism which drags the most sacred
things into the arena and through the mire of controversy :
both seem to forget the interest of the flock for whose
behoof men are made clerks and priests. There is a
clericalism which determines all personal and social ques
tions according to their bearing on clerical status ; there is
a sacerdotalism which, unfortunately, has a charm for
young and inexperienced men, who, in the consciousness
of the nobility and responsibility of their calling, disparage
and reject authority which they are sworn to obey, and
discipline which in too great kindness spares them, and the
duty of obedience which no amount of sacrifice can super
sede, and above all, that love and service of the flock
which nothing on earth, or in heaven either, can make less
than the sum and substance of their service. It surely is a
matter of severe remonstrance when one sees these things,
by whatever name they are called, and in whatever party
or section of party they are at work, corrupting the
sincerity as well as destroying the usefulness of those
whose meat and drink should be to do the will of Him
that has called and sent them, and, after His own example,
not to be ministered unto, but to minister — to Him for
them, to them for Him — but in all relations, for the saving
of those for whom He died.
May God take away from us the will to use, and the
self-will that deserves the reproach of, bitter words.

FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
MAY AND JUNE, 1899

THE third of the subjects to which I have referred
as in a way standing over from the Visitation
Charge of 1896, the question of the Unity of the Church
and the correspondence on Anglican Orders, need not
detain us longer than the mere note of dates and con
tents of letters. The question, so far as it is debatable,
is for the present closed. I may remind you that in my
charge of that year I went, at what probably struck my
hearers as more than necessary length, into a statement
of my own beliefs, principles, and anticipations. I adhere
to that statement of beliefs and principles, and I think
that the results have fulfilled my anticipations.
Pope's Encyclical.
The, Pope on June 20th, 1894, issued an Apostolic
Epistle to all princes and peoples — the encyclical Prceclara
— urging them to take all means for the security and
vindication of the Unity of the Church catholic, east and
west, and all over the world. This was followed in 1895,
on April 14th, by a letter to the English people — Aman-
tissimcB voluntatis — inviting them to such unity as was
conceivable in submission to the Roman Church ; sum
marising the history of the conversion of England in the
sixth and seventh centuries, the changes of the sixteenth
and seventeenth, the devotion of great saints to the cause
of recovery, and the necessary warnings against rationalism
and materialism. This letter was a sort of application of
S06

POPE'S ENCYCLICAL 307
the teaching of the encyclical of the previous year ; and,
after urging prayer for reunion, and inviting co-operation
in increased effort for it, added a special form of prayer
to the blessed Virgin for her intercession for the dissident
brethren and their admission into the true fold. When
I gave my charge in 1896, another epistle was understood
to be in preparation. This appeared on June 29th — an
encyclic on unity — Satis cognitum — and was a much
longer and more discursive document, for which, if it
could have been read without the prejudice inseparable
from the papal assumption, the whole Church might well
have been thankful; but which, apart from this ground
of vantage and drawback alike, would probably not have
received much notice in our Church had it not been for
the fact that, whilst it was in preparation, it was under
stood that investigations were being carried on at Rome
on the subject of Anglican Orders. This was, I need not
say, an old subject, which had been reopened in a fashion
by a letter on the question written by M. Fernand Dalbus,
in November, 1893, and apparently was regarded with
much interest in ecclesiastical circles abroad. It is a
subject on which I for one never for a moment expected
that any new conclusions could be arrived at, or if arrived
at on historical grounds could possibly be acknowledged.
Into the special circumstances of that investigation, how
it originated, and how it was carried on, what additional
evidences were adduced or rejected, I am quite unable
to say. I believe that very contradictory statements have
been made about this, and some very improbable assump
tions started: it is possible that materials exist which
may some day be forthcoming, that may throw light upon
it But I am, of course, in a position to say with authority
that such investigation was never demanded, in any shape
or way, by the Bishops or constitutional representatives of
the Church of England ; and that the curiosity, some
what overrated and overstated, with which we looked
for the result, was a curiosity as to materials and mode
of treatment, much more than an anxiety about possible
conclusions.

308 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
Whatever we may have looked for, or might have looked
for, the silence of the intervening months was broken by
the issue, on September 13th, 1896, of the apostolic letter
Apostolicce curcB on Anglican Ordinations. In this the
discussion was practically closed and the papal decision
announced. As you are aware, no doubt, the historical
side of the question, of the transmission of Holy Orders,
was set aside to all intents and purposes ; and the rejection
of Anglican Orders was based argumentatively on the
assumption of the incompleteness of our doctrine of the
priesthood in relation to the presbyterate and to the
episcopate alike. Unfortunately, just at this moment, on
October nth, the Archbishop of Canterbury was called
to his rest, whilst actually preparing memoranda and
materials for a reply or acknowledgment of the letter
Apostolicce cura. He left the task of answering to the
Archbishop who succeeded him and his brother of York.
And by them was drawn up the Responsio, the reply to
the Pope, which appeared, in Latin and English, on
February 19th, 1897.
This letter, which I would commend to your careful
study for more than temporary reasons, contains a well-
argued statement, on scriptural and historical grounds, of
the theory of the priestly office, and a vindication of our
Communion rite as affecting or affected by it It was
hoped that for this age at least, the agitation of the
question was set at rest, and that, to the great majority
of English Churchmen, on the point at which the Pope's
argument or assumption was aimed, the reply would be
conclusive. But the weapon of controversy was soon
taken up by Cardinal Vaughan and his Bishops, who
in a Vindication, as it was called, of the papal letter, re
opened the discussion by an attack on our position from
the side of sacramental doctrine, with especial regard to
transubstantiation as an essential element in it. This
matter was one which of course was not debatable by
us, and seemed likely to those who broached it to afford
them an easy triumph, somewhat perhaps after the fashion
of the fallacy plurium interrogationuni. The Vindicatio

EDUCATION 309
was published early in January, 1898, and was answered
by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in the follow
ing March. This answer, which is short and definitive,
rejects the statement made in the Vindicatio, as to the
claims of the Pope, protesting against the tone of it,
especially in the assumption of a chaos existing wherever
the authority of the Roman see is not acknowledged.
The Archbishops decline to see in the Vindicatio any
logical justification of the papal letter, or to recognise the
validity of an argument on transubstantiation which was
not contained in that letter. That argument places the
discussion on ground on which our Church can and
will admit of no variation of plea; it is impossible for
us to believe that it is our Lord's will that the ministry
of the Church should depend on a metaphysical definition,
expressed in terms of mediaeval philosophy. The claims
of the Papacy must, then, be believed to be the great
obstacle to unity.
With this reply the controversy, if it is a controversy,
has reached its present phase. For us it is conclusive. I
hope that my scanty outline of it may not have caused a
waste of your time to-day. It seemed to me desirable to
put the matter into continuous connection with what I
have said in my former charges. It is not improbable that
the whole correspondence, although it is somewhat difficult
to follow, may be found to have a bearing on the other
complications in which the present strife of parties have
involved us ; but the question of Unity and Orders is for
the moment, outside of the popular view, except in the
form of Sacerdotalism..
Education. The perennial question of education by itself demands
more discussion than I can undertake to give it now. But
it is not one on the merits of which there can be much
division of opinion among ourselves.
We all are committed to the belief that religious
education, and that on the principles of the Church
of England, is an indispensable requisite in our schools;

310 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
and I think further that we are agreed that the transfer
of our Church elementary schools to School Boards,
whilst the Cowper-Temple clause of 1870 is still in force,
is, except the case of that dire necessity which knows
no law, an act of disloyalty to the first principles of
Churchmen. And the difficulties of the present state of things are
constantly before our minds ; the competition between
the two systems, the unlimited funds that are at the
disposal of the rival agency, the political influences and
feelings which more or less affect the theory and practice
of elementary education ; the impatience, the growing
impatience, at the continuing, wearying struggle; the
difficulties, pressed home in administration, of keeping up
with the demands for extending and increasing efficiency,
not to speak particularly of official, personal, and local
antagonisms — of these there is no end.
It cannot be denied that a uniform system of schools
and aids would be an enormous benefit, an enormous
relief; it cannot be denied that such a benefit, such a
relief, would be dearly bought at the cost of the sacrifice
of religious teaching. It cannot be maintained that either
the advocates of religious teaching, or the opponents of
our system and principle, have brought within sight of
probability any scheme for the organising of such
teaching independent of the elementary school. I do not
know whether I should be justified in saying that any
Nonconformist community can be satisfied, to its own
justification, with the teaching limited by the Cowper-
Temple clause; but I am quite sure that no school of
thinkers in the Church can be so satisfied, without some
supplementary instruction, for which as yet no organisation
is available or attainable. The Sunday-school teaching,
depending largely on voluntary and untrained effort, and
on voluntary and undisciplined attendance, cannot, with
all its merits and approved benefits of good influence,
pretend to be sufficient, nor does it. The result is that the
Nonconformist who can satisfy himself with the board-
school teaching gets his children taught at the public

CLERICAL POVERTY 311
expense, the Churchman does not. That, however, is an
old story. . . .
On the question of secondary education, and the wider
horizon that through it seems to be opening upon the
educational administration generally, I need not venture to
embark. It is not too much to hope that an acceptable
scheme may be devised, which may make it not more
difficult than it is now for the religious element to have its
proper recognition. In manipulating the older scholastic
institutions and their resources, as was done years ago,
serious injustice, as many people think, was done to the
Church ; and in the development of anything like a
general scheme, under national authority, but liable to be
modified at every crisis by political factors, some adjust
ments should be possible which would not proscribe
dogmatic teaching, in such a way as to lower the national
apprehension of religious truth. But in these matters of
adjustment and readjustment we find a very leisurely
reaction after hasty reform ; a tedious and ineffective sort of
reaction which never goes far enough to restore the waste
places, or build again what has been prematurely destroyed.
Clerical Poverty.
I wish that it ever were my good fortune to issue a
Visitation Charge without having to recur to the grievous
question of the increase of clerical poverty. It is in
creasing, and becoming more difficult to deal with as it
increases. It is in its very nature depressing, weakening
to the physical strength and spirits, distracting to the local
and family energies, exhausting to the time and mental
activity of those who are suffering, and so lowering even
the standard and will of work. Little by little the amenities
of the simplest life are decreasing ; the demands for ex
penditure, in the agricultural parishes, of which this
diocese is so largely constituted, are increasing ; the means
of education, such as the clergyman might reasonably
expect for his children, are becoming more restricted, and
the cost more difficult to meet. In that way, it is said,
there is a resulting loss of promising labour in the supply

312 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
of candidates for ordination, a fact which perhaps affects
other dioceses more than it does ours. The prospect, too,
of providing for life insurance or provident assurance, or
even for the retirement of the disabled clergy under the
Pensions Act, is becoming more illusory than ever. The
ways in which small incomes can be supplemented by
tutorial or literary work are not at all satisfactory, and
could not be made so if they were widely successful, as
they are not. The difficulties of uniting small benefices
with small populations are very serious — the parishioners
are in almost every case strongly opposed to the plan, and
the complications of the patronage are not easy to deal
with. There are many livings overhoused, involving, as
I know to my sorrow, dreadful anticipations of dilapida
tions, increasing need of repairs, and unnecessary ex
penditure in wages of servants. Whether in this point
some relief might not be found if there were a legal
possibility of leasing the large houses, or of treating them
as general ecclesiastical rather than parochial property,
manageable by the Ecclesiastical Commission, I dare not
say ; but one thinks that they might be so manipulated
as to furnish a more manageable provision for the im
poverished benefices. It is an economic question which
I am not competent to ask or answer. I should be sorry
to think that the alternative is to sell these houses at a
dead loss, for in no case, I think, will the larger house sell
for more money than it will take to build the smaller one :
and the cases in which a happy arrangement of this sort
has been made are few and far between.
It really seems that we have no resource but continued
application to the owners of property, and congregations
of the churches, who are in many cases suffering in the
same way as the clergy for whom we ask their help. Many
of the owners of land, I have no doubt, or I may say, I
know, do much privately. Some, fewer than used to be
found, of the clergy, are men of means who can even help
their brethren ; all, I am proud to say, except a marked
and unhappy residuum, whose offence against honour and
good taste is greater than poverty can excuse, do their

SUSTENTATION FUND 313
best to maintain spirit and work under the pressure. But
the pressure is increasing.
One other good sign there is — and I mention it here
because I do not mean to go into the curate question in
my present charge. I do not think we have found it
necessary in this diocese to economise the supply of curates.
Comparing the Kalendar for 1899 with that of 1889, 1 find
that the number of assistant curates has increased rather
than diminished. It has varied in different places accord
ing to the age and necessities of incumbents, but in no
case unaccountably. Curates, as we know, are not plenti
ful generally, but, whatever may be the rule about the
difficulty of securing and retaining them, we have not
been compelled to reduce the staff or the rate of re
muneration. I wish that my Pastoral Letter obtained a
heartier response and more money for spiritual help ; but
this consideration is not discouraging, just now.
Sustentation Fund.
Well, then, how about the Sustentation Fund ? — the fund
that in 1897 the laity were looking forward to the pleasure
of sustaining, and for which in that year certainly large
sums were raised, and very much larger hopes. You will
remember our initial difficulties, and the reluctance which
in the Diocesan Conference was expressed to adopt with
out modification the principles and method of the Central
Queen Victoria Jubilee Fund. I am happy to say that
last year we arrived at a modified agreement with the
Central Agency, and that now we are able to work with
it, and to benefit by it, without risking damage to our own
plan of augmenting benefices and helping poor parishes
and poor clergy.
I hope that I need not now urge upon clergy and
churchwardens the necessity of supporting the plan, and
of doing it without loss to the other charitable work, local,
diocesan, or general. But we must not, we do not, expect
too much, or for a moment regard this agency as exonera
ting us from any portion of our private or public duties
of contribution.

314 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
The Spiritual Character of the Church of England.
It may be quite unnecessary, but in the present state of
the religious atmosphere it may be quite necessary, for me to
say that, in what I am going to say, I am going to address
you as men who have a thorough and earnest and honest
belief in the essential spiritual character of the Church of
England, as being, in God's contemplation and in the
experience of human history, so far as we can read either
of them, a living, springing, connected, and rightly developed
member of the great body of the Catholic Church, the
Body of Christ I shall not go over again the statement
of principles which I have put before you in my earlier
Charges, nor yet the distinctive points which, without any
exclusion or ignoring of the claims of other religious
bodies, I have, on the testimony of our continuous history,
and the declarations of our symbolical books, claimed as
marking our position as the Catholic Church in and for
England, the national wing of the great Catholic Army of
Christ. I say without exclusion, for I am well aware
of the claims which other communities, beside the Church
of Rome, advance to oust us from our title, and of the
objections that are made to our claim of continuity and
catholicity, and even of corporeity at all, as distinguished
from the idea of Establishment and the Christian state.
It is the affirmation of our claim, not the exclusion of their
competition, on which I insist And I am aware of the
singular concordat between Roman and Puritan contro
versialists, who agree in nothing much besides, to maintain
the theory that the Church of England is the creation of
Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Elizabeth, as neither
representing the religious life of the land in its corporate
organisation, nor constituted by a continuous succession
of faith, discipline, and orders from the earliest Christianity
of England, and the Catholic and Apostolic body from
which that Christianity came ; which reaches back to the
Upper Chamber of the first Easter, and the bodily presence
of the risen Lord, to the parting command to baptise all
nations, and the promise of the continued presence even
to the end of the world. I repeat my own conviction, and

THE "CRISIS" 315
I trust that I have your sympathy and fellowship of belief
So I do not bring in question the rights, liberties, and
experiences of other communities, which have taken other
ways than ours of approaching our common Father and
Lord ; or the working in and through them of the self
same Spirit ; or the shining on and in them of the true
light that lighteth every man that is born into this world.
I do not question the reality of their prayers, or the
validity of the rites which they substitute for our sacra
ments. But I speak to you, as to men who realise
affirmatively and constructively what you profess to
believe. Thus, then, I do not repeat the arguments of former
years ; rather, as I said, I must take it for granted that,
in what I affirm, I may appeal to your acceptance of the
first principles of belief I daresay that some people out
side will say that all this is mere sacerdotalism, and that
I am trying to entangle you in admission of the same
theories. But I do not think that we need mind that very
much. Some points of difficulty must be treated with
particular notice, but I shall not attempt an exhaustive, or
even a connected treatment of our whole counsel. So
much be understood.
This may be a solemn prelude to what may strike some
of you as a commonplace Charge — but I let it stand,
because it is true to me, and, I trust, true to you, and there
is nothing, high or low, in the matters that I have to speak
to you about, that we can afford to debate in reference
to a lower standard.
The "Crisis."
You will expect me, and justly, to speak now about what
is called the crisis, the present crisis in Church affairs.
I do not mean to say that it is not a crisis, for every day's
work involves a crisis, every moment a trial, every morn
ing a visit of judgment I do not think that it is essentially
a crisis determining the defeat or victory of parties, or the
relations of Church and State ; but it certainly is a crisis
for victory between the moral forces of charity and in-

316 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
tolerance, hatred and love, obstinate wrongheadedness and
intolerant assumption, the spirit of controversy and the
spirit of peace — Christian civilisation and unchristian bar
barism. Hard words ! let him that is without sin cast the
first stone.
In looking, in a more special way, to the circumstances
that are connected with this crisis, it may be well briefly
to set in order the series of events which, during the last
year and a half, have followed one another rapidly and
confusedly. Anyhow, this arrangement will help us to
discriminate the several points on which, in a Charge like
this, it will be convenient for me to touch.
Trouble began with the outcry about additional services
and ceremonies adopted in some few churches in London
and the neighbourhood, which, not being provided in the
Prayer Book, and having neither traditional authority as
survivals, logical consistency with the legal ritual, nor
special recognition by the Bishops, were startling to
religious people in general, were attacked in a tumultuary
manner by certain agencies which it is not necessary for
me to characterise, and were defended by their supporters,
in resolute manifestoes and elaborate arguments, with
which I, happily, am not called upon to deal.
A little later arose what I must call a second outcry
against the Bishops as a body, who might, it was asserted,
have stopped the offensive ritual if they had been awake
and active in doing their duty ; and who, not having done
it, were guilty of laches, and even perversion and frustra
tion of justice, by putting, it was asserted, obstacles in the
way of ecclesiastical litigation. This complaint was largely
ventilated in newspaper articles, and letters, signed and
anonymous, in which the policy and honesty of the Bishops
were openly and unreservedly challenged ; a method
which, it is scarcely too much to say, was calculated
absolutely to defeat the object which was supposed to be
aimed at ; weakening the machinery by which the remedies
might possibly have been worked. The excitement thus
produced had the effect of stimulating resistance amongst
the clergy and congregations implicated in the services

THE "CRISIS" 317
attacked, and producing some sadly strained relations
between them and the Bishops, whose great offence to the
attacking party was the way in which the extravagances
had been overlooked or condoned.
Coincidently with this arose, not unnaturally, a demand
for the reform of ecclesiastical courts, of courts in which
ecclesiastical questions are debated and decided; urged
from the side of the agitators with the view or compelling
the Bishops to vigorous action; supported with some
vehemence by the other side, as necessary for the restora
tion of a jurisdiction which they could conscientiously
regard as authoritative, but which at present appears to
them to be unconstitutionally dealt with on the side of the
Crown; and seriously taken into consideration by the
Bishops themselves. This question of reform, of course,
has been discussed, in somewhat illogical and very violent
contravention, by the party of high ritual, whose action in
contesting the capacity and competency of the present
judicial system, urging the validity of the old Canon Law
and the necessity of reviving purely spiritual courts, has
its counterbalance in the determination of the other party
to aim at nothing less than the total abolition of the ecclesi
astical element in jurisdiction. This conflict not im
probably represents the finally obstructive element in all
plans of pacification.
Less technically, as a part of a programme, but really
and vitally a measure of tactic, emerged a series of literary,
argumentative, and historical onslaughts on the position of
the High Church party, especially as connected with the
Oxford Movement, and the men, schools, and ecclesiastical
propensions assumed to influence men and schools, and
especially the present episcopate.
And, lastly, on this array of opposite forces and principles
has been developed an attack, along the whole line, upon
the Church of England and its character, history, policy,
discipline, order, and ritual, in which some of the Non
conformists and some Roman Catholic advocates have
joined, with a certain inclination to raise the question of
Disestablishment. This attack has been promoted by

318 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
public meetings, arguments in both Houses of Parliament,
an elaborate association of inquisitory and propagandist
agencies ; by the circulation of violent controversial pam
phlets, and by personalities of a character that had seemed
to have worked itself out in the miUe of the age of the
Reformation. And in this we now are.
I hope that, in this short review of the course of our
adventures since 1897, 1 have succeeded in marking out the
several topics which, more or less briefly and tediously, I
shall notice in the course of this Charge.
Additional Services.
I will take first the question of additional services, on
which the earliest discussion of any special importance
arose, although that discussion did not very much affect
this diocese except in the way of stimulating public atten
tion to what are called ritual extravagances. I construe the
name additional services to denote services not prescribed
in the Book of Common Prayer, or authorised by the
Bishop of the diocese under the Act of Uniformity
Amendment Act of 1872. Following the example of some
of my brother Bishops, I issued in October last a letter to
the clergy of the diocese inquiring what services, if any,
outside that limit were held in their churches.
To that inquiry I have had a great number of answers.
In 511 churches out of 650 (speaking roundly) I am in
formed that there are no such extra or additional services ;
but this statement must not be regarded as exactly an
answer to the question, for in a great proportion of them,
Harvest Festival Services, Special Mission Services, Inter
cession for Missions, Church of England Temperance
Society Services, Girls' Friendly and Mothers' Union
Services, are so customary as to be practically to be
authorised, even without special sanction at each recur
rence. And the same may be said of the Three Hours'
Services on Good Friday, which contain nothing in the
way of formal prayer that is not in the Prayer Book. All
these are very common. I should be sorry to think it
otherwise, for although I cannot always consider multiplica-

ADDITIONAL SERVICES 319
tion of services as a mark of discreet and zealous labour, I
cannot say that I wish the use of the churches to be
limited to the regular Sunday and Saints' Day Services,
even when supplemented by the proper daily Mattins and
Evensong. However, as nearly as I can calculate, there
are in the diocese between five and six hundred churches
in which no service is used which is not prescribed by
the Prayer Book, or does not come within the terms of
the Act of 1872, except so far as the explicit sanction
of the Diocesan has been in cases dispensed with as un
necessary. Of the remaining returns to my circular, some call for
special notice, and some for very brief mention. I shall
make my remarks, however, general. Where it is necessary
for me to localise a variation, I shall deal with it privately.
It appears that, in some dozen churches. Lantern Services,
as they are called, have been held ; probably without any
serious departure, as to the use of unauthorised forms, from
the rule already stated. I am very sorry for this; it has
been done without my expressed leave, and without my
approval. These Lantern Exhibitions are in place in
schools or mission rooms, but the church is not the proper
place for them, even as adjuncts to Divine service; nor
do I think that the argument that in church the solemn
pictures exhibited, and the words spoken in reference to
them, will be treated more solemnly or with more devotion,
or with less irreverence, for that it is what it comes to, than
they would be in school, is a valid argument in their favour.
Prayers may be reasonably made an accompaniment of the
exhibition in schools, and with possibly more freedom than
could be in any circumstances sanctioned in church. And
order might be as easily and reasonably enforced. But if
these are to be sanctioned and become common, it is hard
to say where the development of the irregularity can be
stopped. Certainly there would be great difficulty in
objecting to processions to Stations of the Cross, if Lantern
Services were recognised, and as I cannot see how the
former can be freed from objection, I infer that the objec
tion runs against the other. This, which is perhaps the

320 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
smallest of the exceptional points, I shall not dwell on
further. The following points are incidentally serious, but not,
as it seems to me, in themselves of very great importance: —
(a) Collects
The substitution of Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, on
certain days, especially black letter Saints' Days, and most
especially on the festivals of the Blessed Virgin, for the
ordinary Collects, Epistles, and Gospels of the week. This
is objectionable, not so much because of anything that
would be fairly open to misunderstanding in the forms
used, but because of the entire absence of authority for
departure from the order of the Church, and the con
sequent opening made for use in the Collects of language
irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church ; as, for
instance, in invocation, or in prayer for the acceptance of
the mediation of the saints. I am aware that the use of
these is not uncommon in the chapels of some of the
communities, and that the use of the appropriate Gospels
and Epistles is defensible as sanctioned or recognised by
Bishops where it has been asked. But I have never agreed
to sanction such Collects myself, even when and where
they are quite innocent. These must not be used at all
in parish churches or public services. There are very few
cases in which such a practice is returned, but they deserve
a certain modicum of censure.
(6) Stations of the Cross.
The use of special processional services in connexion
with the Stations of the Cross. This may be quite in
offensive, if the prayers be taken from the Book of Common
Prayer, and if special sanction is given ; but I do not think
that the practice should be encouraged, as it is distinctly
one that has no recognition at all in our legal and canonical
worship, and is open to very unkind criticism, to which
we ought not to subject the holy things, scenes of events,
and representation of acts that we profess to venerate.
The erection of the pictures or sculptures of the Stations

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD 321
of the Cross ought never to be attempted without the
authority of a faculty.
(c) Blessing of Palms.
A like caution, if you will please to consider it one,
will apply to the blessing and presenting of palms on
Palm Sunday, if it be done in church. There is nothing
superstitious in this, but if it is to be done, it had better
be done outside.

(d) Guild Services.
The special forms of Guild Services, including pro
cessions. Guild Collects, and other little ceremonies, to
which objection could only be made on the ground of
frivolity, are another head. There are, however, a large
number of such Guilds in the towns, some of them using
Collects in which the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are
mentioned, and which are tinged with a sort of super
stition that is quite irreconcilable with the teaching of the
Church. I will not specify them particularly, as I have
mentioned under the first head the obvious objection to
their legality, and I think that they are alike unfitted for
private and public use. This may strike you as severe,
especially considering the variety of local uses, but I
should be glad not to be called upon to refuse or to grant
sanction to many of the local manuals, as well as to the
more ambitious attempts at general collections of such
forms. The following points are of more importance, and I
would wish to impress upon you very strongly the need
of discreet and cautious action in any approach which you
may wish to make to quite justifiable acts and offices
which lie under serious objections on other grounds : —
(«) Prayers for the Dead.
The use of Services for the Dead, I observe in the
returns made to me from some ten churches, notices of
services under the name of Vespers for the Dead, and for
special observance of All Souls' Day. I am not going to

FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
lay down any principle about prayers for the dead. I
believe that it is legally recognised that to pray for the
dead is not forbidden in the Church of England : the idea
recommends itself very strongly to the hearts and affec
tions of a great number of good Christian people. Prayers
for the dead are not open to exoteric objection, for as we
know nothing whatever about the exact condition of the
departed until the day of judgment, and cannot dream of
limiting by our ignorance the possible action of the Lord
of life regarding them, there is nothing conceivably to be
objected to the addressing the Almighty Lord in whose
hands they are, in prayers to which He will assuredly
give such weight as they may deserve. In all such con
templations we are too prone to judge of the things unseen
by the things that we see and know, and to look at the
action of the Almighty as somehow conditioned by our
own powers of sight and understanding. Services in
memory of the departed are very common, and becoming
still more so; and, indeed, whenever we pray that we
ourselves may meet again with those whom we have loved
and lost, do we not pray for the dead ? But it must not
be forgotten that in the mediaeval Church the practice was
closely connected with that usage of celebration of Masses
for the Dead, on which our Church, in the Thirty-first
Article, has passed the severest sentence of condemnation
that she has ever passed on any Roman abuse.
I most earnestly hope that those of the clergy who desire
to use their legal freedom in this matter will use it legally,
and strictly confine themselves to the language of the
Prayer Book, which is amply sufficient for public utter
ances offered to Him who heareth the prayer.
Holy Communion.
On the various, few but various, departures from the
regular practice of the Church in connexion with the Holy
Communion, which are reported to me, and which do not
properly come under the head of additional services, I had
better say what little it is necessary for me to say now.
You will, I hope, remember the strong cautions which in

CORPUS CHRISTI 323
former years I have given you about certain practices
connected with the Blessed Sacrament. I have censured,
and would again in express terms censure most definitely : —
(i) The practice of celebrating where only the priest or
a colourable quota of communicants participate in the com
munion. Where this is done I consider that the show of
ceremony and elaboration of music add to the various
objections which the practice seems to me to deserve.
(2) The use of attitudes and postures which may
without unreasonably captious suspicion be regarded as
committing the worshipper to that form of Roman error,
in transubstantiation, against which our own Church has
continuously and unwaveringly protested.
(3) The practice of bringing children, not confirmed, to
see the celebration, either as a lesson, or as a part of regular
worship in substitution for the morning prayers which are
the family portion of English Church-men and -women.
(4) The question of reservation, about which I need not
now speak particularly.
Corpus Christi.
On all these points you know my mind, and what weight
my censure is likely to have with you. I cannot forbid
you to do what it is beyond my power to prevent, nor shall
I enjoin on you the doing of things that you have a right
and discretion to refuse to do. But I will mention one
more in particular; the special devotions, occasionally
returned, for Corpus Christi Day, and the use of language
in connexion with the celebration of that day which
cannot be countenanced in the Church of England. I am
very sensible that the ceremonies performed in foreign
countries on that day have something attractive to some
sorts of English people, who see in them, perhaps on their
summer holiday, the first remarkable exhibition of devo
tion in the new country. It is a beautiful sight in itself,
and indeed it is very impressive as an assertion of religious
life and belief, very often seen amongst, and tolerated by
the people of a country whose ruling powers only recognise
divine teaching on very rare occasions. But without bring-

324 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
ing against the simple people who make a great function
of it the charge of unreality or of superstition, we must
say that it is a ceremony which will not bear analysis, and
is from every point of view open to the most destructive
criticism, historical and theological. It can never commend
itself to the English nation, and to attempt to copy it is
to drag the Holy Sacrament through the mire of ignorant
scoffing, and still viler comment from people who, without
being exactly ignorant, cannot refrain from the criticism
which injures both themselves and the people they criticise.
Preparation for Holy Communion.
Another point is this. I see that in the list of addi
tional services there are occasionally included uses of
communicant and children's services in preparation for
Holy Communion, and that classes are held in church in
some places with special prayers and special forms of
general confession. I must say that this seems to me a
matter for special caution. Public self-examination, in the
form of question put by the priest, and collective or in
dividual reply made by the members of the class, is a
thing which only a very careful and experienced clergy
man is qualified to manage. It is open to two objections,
(i) that of entire unreality, and (2) that of unadvisable
suggestion, both of them objections which tell so seriously
against the methods of private confession. What I have
to say generally about that I shall come to presently ; now
I confine myself to the caution to be observed in the use
of numerous manuals, which seem to be put into the hands
of communicants and candidates, only a very few of which
can be said to be free from the risk of misuse and misin
terpretation, as well as from the tendency to morbid
feeling and the stimulus to unwholesome curiosity.
Books of Devotion.
One thing more : in the use of books of special
devotions there are frequently brought into the language
of prayer and praise terms which are quite out of harmony
with the idea of public, united, and reasonable service

THE "MASS" 325
This mischief is not peculiar to any school in the Church
or any community of Christians — it is very common in all
sections of revivalism of evangelistic agencies, even of
such steady religious bodies as the Moravians, as well as
in the Church of Rome. There is a special temptation to
it apparently in Mission Services. There are many terms
of address to our Lord and to the Almighty Father, and
even to the Holy Ghost, which are irreverent in themselves,
and only to be extenuated as the language of an en
thusiasm which does not pervade ordinary congregations
even of the most devout people. Such cries, for instance,
to our Lord as "Sweet Jesu," or" Prince of the Catholic
Church," even if fortified by the authority of Jeremy
Taylor, do not carry a reality to the ears of English
people, and if they have no real meaning they are worse
then irreverent.
Here I will close my review. I hope that I have not
seriously hurt the feelings of any who have heard me. I
think that I have given to the matter as much time and
attention as, in this diocese, it demands. For without any
Pharisaism I may be thankful that so little that is difficult
of treatment in these respects has emerged in this diocese,
and I heartily thank the clergy and laity alike who have
helped to keep us at peace when so many of our neighbours
have been at war. May God continue that peace to us,
and help those who have worked in discreet, sympathetic,
progressive ways towards the accomplishment of His good
purpose. I thank all you who have helped towards this
end with the most sincere gratitude that my heart is
capable of.
The "Mass.''
I would beg the clergy to abstain from using the word
Mass for the service of celebrating the Holy Sacrament.
The word Mass signifies that form of celebration which
is proper to the Roman and unreformed Church of the
West It may or may not be the best form, the true
Catholic form, the most perfect form ; but the word means
not the Sacrament, but the service of celebration.

326 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
The service of our own Church contains all that is
necessary for the complete celebration, but in form and
ritual it is not the same as the Roman.
Nothing in this distinction ought to be interpreted as
affecting the validity, authenticity, or efficiency of either
rite. We humbly trust that wherever, by those who believe
the Lord's word, desire His promise, and obey His com
mand, that which is done is done in remembrance of
Him, the Sacrament is duly celebrated, and its efficacy
guaranteed by the great promise of the Saviour Himself.
But however that may be, and however much we may be
inclined to the supposition that it is according to the
measure and kind of their faith that the grace is given —
it is not for us to limit the action of divine love by the
ignorance of those who appeal to it, or by the diversity of
interpretations of those who seek, in sincerity and humility,
more perfect experience of the blessing, the blessing of
the gift itself more than they can understand, or desire, or
deserve. But to use the name that belongs to one particular form
of rite for another form which, in all matters of form except
the repetition of the words of Institution, is distinct from
it, is not only inconsistent, but incompatible with truth.
And when and where it is done, either with an intention
of promoting discord, or with a wish to conceal difference
of opinion and belief it is altogether to be discountenanced.
Whether it is thus used to disguise differences of detail, or
of faith, to give colour to an unreal claim of uniformity ;
or whether it is used to accentuate differences of detail
so as to provoke charges of fundamental division between
schools and sections of the Church, is to be condemned.
And the wanton misuse of it in applying it to our order of
Holy Communion is very strongly to be condemned. The
Reformers in the first Prayer Book retained the word, but
when they realised the state of the case they gave it up.
Even if the " Mass " were identical with the Order of the
Administration of the Lord's Supper, the use of the name
would be offensive — but as certainly it is not, it is false and
suggestive of more falsehood and more insincerity. Of

CONFESSION 327
the silliness of this I prefer not to speak. On this point
I would peremptorily insist ; and would forbid the employ
ment of the term absolutely, were I not apprehensive that
those who are so foolish as to use it would not be wise
enough to obey my injunction.
Confession. And here I will put in a few words that I have to speak
about Confession — words which I have said or written
often before to-day, but which will help us to complete our
present review of existing difficulties, and which I will beg
of you to take as they stand, reading nothing between the
lines. It is quite clear that the Church of England regards the
confession of sin as a most important part of her religious
system. In both Morning and Evening Prayer, in the
office of Holy Communion, and in the service for the
Visitation of the Sick, and in the Commination Service for
Ash Wednesday, she has set before her children the
necessity for the confession of sin. She has, in each place,
asserted for her ministers the authority to pronounce to
the penitent her Lord's message of absolution, and in the
Ordination of Priests, in the most solemn words uttered at
the moment of the laying on of hands, she claims for them
their share in the great commission which our Lord gave
to His apostles : " Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are
forgiven ; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are re
tained." These things cannot be gainsaid. She has like
wise authorised her members to have recourse in certain
cases, where anyone cannot, by confession to Almighty
God, with full purpose of amendment and present undoing
of wrong and reconciliation with his neighbours, quiet his
own conscience herein, but requires further comfort and
counsel to have recourse to the parish priest, or to some
other discreet and learned minister of God's Word, and
"open his grief; that by the ministry of God's holy Word
he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with
ghostly counsel and advice to the quieting of his con
science, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness."

328 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
This recommendation, it must be observed, is for the
benefit of persons qualified to receive the Holy Sacrament,
and kept back by a consciousness of unworthiness. It
cannot, then, be honestly pressed into the argument for
making confession a part of the discipline of the uncon
firmed, or of preparation for Confirmation.
But the Church has not, by any minute regulations,
defined the occasions or methods of the proceeding, thus
leaving a certain amount of liberty and discretion to the
person who is encouraged to adopt it. Nor has she any
where formulated an authoritative discipline of the kind,
or authorised her clergy to impose such discipline as part
of her ordinary system of working. She does, on the
other hand, insist in the strongest way, both in the Com
munion Service and in the Catechism, on self-examination
as a part of the preparation for the Holy Communion. A
clergyman, then, is not justified by our Prayer Book in
imposing confession on the young in preparation for
Confirmation or first Communion ; and if, in the manuals
used for self-examination in communicant classes or other,
any direction is to be found that implies the obligation of
specific or particular confession as necessary, or that re
commends minute or suggestive examination by the clergy
man before the giving of absolution, I should strongly
advise the disuse of such compilations.
I know, and you know, that there are considerable
differences of opinion among clergyman of discretion, zeal,
and experience, as to how this matter should be dealt
with, and whether the regular habit of confession and
absolution, limited by the words of the Church, can be
wisely encouraged. I have, personally speaking, always
believed that such a regular practice is rather depreciating
than helpful to the spiritual sense and to the reality
of moral responsibility, weakening to the religious charac
ter accordingly, and to the unreserved and immediate
sense of approach to God. And, accordingly, I should
strongly protest against the idea of making it a part of the
regular discipline of religious life, against pressing it in any
but exceptional cases where exceptional remedies are

CONFESSION 329
necessary. But I am well aware that the contrary opinion
is maintained and strongly maintained by many men of
far greater knowledge and experience than has ever come
into my life ; whilst I see most cleariy the danger, and
protest most emphatically against the practice of allowing
the ministration to be put or left in the hands of young
and untried men. But when I say this I say it with a
very strong protest against the strange outcry on the sub
ject which we are hearing to-day. I do not believe in the
corrupting power or efforts of the good men who are using
this as a means of blessing. I do not for a moment
believe that the nations or communities that practise it
lose dignity or consciousness of duty and liberty by it.
I do not for a moment believe that the clergy of the
Church of England are not to be trusted with the adminis
tration of it, or that they are more tempted than any
others to make a wrong use of it. I do not believe that in
ordinary cases (and except where there is criminal sugges
tion, the cases are ordinary) a young boy or girl would be
brought by confession into closer acquaintance with sin
and vice than by reading the police reports in the news
papers, or the many amusing books in which vice of one
sort or another constitutes the dominant note of the
recital. But I cannot help feeling that the excitement
which at this moment is being raised about the question,
critical as it is, and unquestionably sincere as it is amongst
large classes of people, does contain certain elements of
unreality : it is so easy and pleasant to repent of other
people's sins, and to expose the fallacy of other people's
beliefs, especially when you neither love nor like them ;
and it is a very tempting thing for people to use for party
purposes, agencies and influences, which can, by the very
fact of their own ignorance, be manipulated for ends of
which they are not conscious. And it is an easy thing
to accuse the Ministry of the Word of complicity in the
very mischiefs which it was framed, and is working, some
times, perhaps, in unwise and hazardous ways, but really
and earnestly working to prevent or to dispel or to remedy.
Surely evil imaginations are a shame to any cause, and

330 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
cowardly insinuations, vile imputations of corrupt intent,
are weapons which may not in this world recoil on those
who use them, but not the less, as St James says of the
abuse of the power of speech, defile the whole body, and
set on fire the course of nature and are set on fire of hell.
No one can read the leaflets or look at the caricatures now
circulated on this subject without detecting a spirit that
deserves such condemnation.
The Bishops.
I turn now to the indictment against the Bishops, in
which the whole burden of responsibility for troubles,
actual and hypothetical, new and old, is laid upon us of
the present day, either as our personal fault, or as an in
heritance which we have aggravated rather than exerted
ourselves to remedy. You will remember the ways in which
these serious charges have been made ; they are written so
that he may run who reads them, and they are circulated
with such elaborate and penetrating urgency that scarcely
the most insignificant household in the country can evade
the reception of them. The offence of each diocese and
of each clergyman in it is laid first on the Bishop of the
diocese, and then on all of us together, with just a little
rebate for the reproach of the minister who appointed us.
Our silence and our utterance are alike set to our discredit ;
we are as bad when we are awake as when we are asleep ;
but our wakefulness or our sleepiness depends on the
opinion of the friends who watch over us ; we are credited
with the misuse of the powers we have not, and with
neglect to use the powers we have. Every man who can
write, can write to the newspapers and call us to account
individually and collectively ; our office as well as our dis
charge of its duties is an imposture — we are the servants,
the paid servants of the laity — the best paid and most pre
tentious branch of the Civil Service — false to our masters,
false to our work, or even to our own low idea of the way
in which it should be done. I think the waste-paper baskets
of the age of the Reformation and of the Rebellion must
have been ransacked for lines and methods of vituperation.

THE BISHOPS 331
The writers and circulators of these criticisms know very
little about us : if they have personal acquaintance with
a single Bishop he is almost invariably made the happy
exception to the general censure; they have very little
knowledge indeed of the order of our lives ; if by chance
they know anything of anyone, he is pretty sure to be
what they call overworked ; all the rest are overpaid ;
he is overburdened with confirmations and ordinations,
and perhaps deserves to be set free from such routine,
that he may devote himself to the defence of certain prin
ciples, and the discipline of certain clergymen through
whom he is himself adroitly attacked. What we do is
done wrong, what we do not do is supplied for us by still
more telling hypothesis.
And what does it all come to? We are unprofitable
servants, no doubt. We are the servants of the servants of
God, who have a right to find fault with us : who doubts
it? A Bishop with a quiet conscience must indeed be
a very unprofitable servant ; but there are ways of realis
ing it, and ways of bringing home to us the reality of it
The danger to us is that the constant bearing of reproaches
which we do not deserve may sometimes harden or blind
us in respect of shortcomings which are not so open before
hand, but which are far more real hindrances to our work,
and more inexcusable at the bar of awakened conscience.
But I must go further than this admonition to myself
and my brethren. I will protest. Our first duty is to
build up, to strengthen, as by God's grace we may, the
agency for the working of the Gospel ; to guard, to develop,
to direct sound work ; to know our people, and set them
an example of loyalty and industry. It is not our sole
duty to repress what needs repression ; it is our first duty
to promote what needs sustaining, to help what needs help;
to direct the zeal that needs direction, to stimulate the
energy that needs urging, to check and to train, not merely
to pluck up and to destroy.
Of course, as officers of the Lord's host, we are bound to
the repression of treachery, disloyalty, and cowardice, but
it is that we may stand in the gap in the day of battle,

332 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
So I say, I cannot recognise the notion that the Bishop
is a mere suspector — the Episcopus is not hyposcopus, if I
may coin a word. I will not devote the best part of my
time and ability to the work of a detective. I will not my
self, nor will I allow my officers to make the opportunities
of worshipping God opportunities of spying out faults ;
I will not profane the sacrament by watching for occasions
of offence. I will make my visitations legally, not as an
inquisitor. I will hear complaints, and I will do my best
to remedy them ; but I will not invite them, and I will
test their genuineness or their factitiousness — facticiousness
— before I act on them. I will keep my eyes open to
mistakes, that I may try to anticipate them, to prevent
them : but I will not provoke resistance or stimulate re
action as reaction. When they come before me, I will
judge them fairly. Where allowances have to be made,
I will balance the reasons for or against allowance. I will
not encourage neglect of duty on the plea of any amount
of zeal ; nor extenuate disloyalty for any elevation of ideal,
or any amount of provocation. But I will not take the law
and rule of my episcopal administration from the dictation
of men or parties who deny alike my official right and my
spiritual competency, however much I may or must
acquiesce in the sentence of condemnation for my personal
disqualifications. Tall talk all this ! and it is perhaps amusing to be told
that I am waking up to the true state of affairs, when it is
the critics who are just awaking to the fact that they have
misjudged me. But it is not less amusing to find their
language agreeing almost literally with the objurgations
hurled by Pope Gregory XL against the Archbishop and
Bishops of England for not persecuting Wickliffe and his
followers in 1377.1 It is a bit of the old leaven derived by
the Puritans from the Papists ; powerful and lasting in its
' " De quibus sic subortis et non exstirpatis, seu saltern eis nulla facta
resistentia quam scimus, sed transactis seu toleratis, conniventibiis oculis vos
aliique praesules Angliae, cum debeatis esse columpnae ecclesiae dictaeque
fidei defensores attenti, conniventibus oculis tam negligenter transeundo, non
immerito deberetis rubore perfundi, verecundari et in propriis conscientiis
remorderi." — xi. Kal. Jun. 1377,

CHURCH AND STATE GOVERNMENT 333
effects, but after all one of the class of curses that come
home to roost.
I have not to learn my duty : I trust in my Lord to help
me to do it. I flatly deny that I have neglected it ; and
you will testify for me.
Church Government.
The next point arises out of this. If as Bishops we
are incompetent and incapable, and if the machinery
of our jurisdiction, whatever may be the basis of it, is
all at sixes and sevens, what can be done to set matters
right? There are two theories to begin with ; one that there
should be a reform of the courts of spiritual jurisdiction
directed to secure the supremacy of the secular authority ;
the other that there should be a reversion to a system,
somewhat ideal in its historic aspect, by which all spiritual
causes should be determined by spiritual law, and by the
authority of spiritual persons only. I put the extreme
views barely in opposition to one another.
The questions connected with this conflict of opinion are
not new to me, as I need hardly tell you. The Commission
on Ecclesiastical Courts which sat from 1881 to 1883 has
left a vivid impression on my memory in more ways than
one ; and all that I learned in the work of that Commission,
and have learned since, has strengthened my convictions,
expressed again and again, in divers forms and places, of
the irreconcilableness of the irreconcilable.
I cannot go into details about this. Let me put before
you one or two simple points — elementary points, you will
see, they are.
There seem to be seven points to be counted on :
I. The sovereign power that creates the Court and gives
the jurisdiction.
2. The Court itself, its composition and qualification.
3. The definition of the point which is to be decided
[contestatio litis').
4. The declaration of the law which is to be applied.
5. The proof or disproof of the charges.

334 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
6. The determination of the sentence.
7. The enforcement or execution of the sentence.
Setting aside for the moment the authority that creates
the Court : (i) we see that in every case of litigation there
must be an authority to decide what is to be done in the
case, and a law to decide how that authority is to determine
on its decision. I do not mean to include in this the
question of the array of facts, which may in any case be
determined by jury or otherwise on evidence, but to dis
tinguish between the position and character of the judge
and the law which is to determine his judgment.
And (2) in every case of litigation a power is required
(a) to determine and (b) to enforce the decision. Or we
may put it : (a) There is an authority that establishes the
jurisdiction ; (b) there is a Court to determine the judg
ment ; (c) there is a law to instruct and bind the Court ;
(d) there is an authority to execute the sentence. Is there
any way of getting these functions discharged by a duplex
machinery ?
It is said the State or the Crown must be in all cases
the constituting authority by which the Court acts; the
Church must, in all cases of spiritual litigation, be the
authority which declares the law ; and again, it is said that
the Church must both be the constituting authority of the
Court, and declare the law that determines the sentence ;
and again, it is said that the secular arm in the con
stitution shall both constitute the Court and declare
the law ; and further it is said that as the secular law
must, for it alone can, enforce and execute the sentence,
it must also have the right to review and to refuse to
execute it.
I am not putting these matters to you as a lawyer, but
in such a way that you may prepare yourselves to see that
there are difficulties on both sides. In this I have the
advantage of the lawyer, whose training (as Oliver Wendell
Holmes has told us) is the best possible training in the
world to enable a man to see one side of a subject. I am
trying roughly to state two or three.
To repeat once more: (i) The Crown may both create

CHURCH AND STATE GOVERNMENT 335
the Court and declare the law ; (2) the Church may both
create the Court and declare the law ; (3) the Crown may
create the Court and the Church declare the law ; (4) the
Church may create the Court and the Crown declare the
law, as having the responsibility of enforcing the law.
Instances may illustrate these conditions or some of
them: e.g. (i) In the Court of High Commission the
Crown practically did both ; (2) in the medieval courts,
whilst excommunication and other ecclesiastical penalties
retained their hold on men's consciences, the Church did
both; (3) in the action of the Court of Delegates (from
the Reformation to 1832) the Crown created the Court,
and the Church by its officers was answerable for the law ;
and (4) when the sentences of excommunication required
enforcement by the secular arm, the last combination was
up to a certain point realised. Again, as I have said, this
is a very rough arrangement, and, in each of the four
alternatives, in practical working some modifications are
necessary. It is sufficiently obvious that for the working of any
duplex theory, some concordat, historically developed or
definitively established, must be in force between Church
and State. I will therefore now read to you seventeen
brief statements of the relations between the two powers
as touching these matters, which I put before the Courts
Commission in 1882, and with a view to which, I am fully
persuaded, all attempts to reconcile the parties which you
know are in conflict on the subject must be made : how
ever little hope or anticipation I may have that they will
be so made.
I. The State has the power and a right to endow and
disendow any religious body, and to prescribe the terms
under which endowments shall be held, and to provide
and modify the machinery for securing that those terms
shall be observed by the religious body so endowed, and
to withdraw the endowments if the terms are not kept, or
if, for other reasons, it seems to the State expedient or
necessary to withdraw them.
2. The State is the source of all coercive jurisdiction.

FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
and, where it allows such jurisdiction to be exercised,
has a right to prescribe the terms on which it is to be
retained, and to examine into the way in which it is
exercised. 3. The Church of England is a religious body, with
distinct principles of belief and constitution, and a certain
relation to historical and Catholic Christianity, which it
cannot alter or part with without forfeiting its essential
character ; and which the State, so long as it deals with
the Church as a corporate institution, recognises as integral
and consistent with the terms on which is so deals, either
by suffering it to hold property or to exercise a coercive
jurisdiction. 4. The Church has, as a part of its essential constitution,
the right to declare the law in matters of faith and spiritual
discipline, to try spiritual causes, and to pronounce spiritual
censures; but she has no coercive jurisdiction except by
the gift and permission of the State, and even spiritual
censures may, when they involve temporal consequences,
be restrained by the civil power.
5. By the Church of England it is to be understood the
clergy and the laity, who are habitually sharers in the
sacraments and other ordinances, and who have not, by
any act of disobedience or schism, separated themselves
from her communion.
6. The clergy have their share in securing and maintain
ing the constitution of the Church by their efficient service
in spiritual matters, by their discharge of the office of
teachers, by their cultivation of theological learning, by
their voice in the Convocations, and by the fact that
Ecclesiastical Magistracy is or should be exercised by the
spiritual hierarchy.
7. The laity have their share in securing and maintain
ing the constitution of the Church by their influence in
the State, by their voice in Parliament, by their possession
of patronage, and by the influence they possess, according
to existing arrangements, in the appointment of the Eccle
siastical Magistracy, the Archbishops and Bishops.
8. The State has in all ages exercised the power of

CHURCH AND STATE GOVERNMENT 337
dealing with ecclesiastical endowments by altering the
boundaries of dioceses and parishes, by resettling eccle
siastical estates, and by rearranging benefactions.
9. The State has in all ages exercised a right of restraint
over ecclesiastical jurisdiction by forbidding ecclesiastical
legislation, by allowing and restraining ecclesiastical ap
peals, and by prohibiting, within certain limits, the issue
of ecclesiastical sentences.
10. The State, while exercising the right to limit the
Church's power of legislation, has not the right to make
canons, but has recognised it as belonging to the Church ;
while exercising the right to authorise and enforce the
Liturgy, it has not the right of making a Liturgy ; and,
while exercising the right to restrain ecclesiastical censures,
has not the right to authorise secular officials to issue such
sentences. II. The State has a right to control ecclesiastical
Judicature, and to remedy complaints of a lack of justice,
by staying the execution of sentences and by directing
the hearing of appeals.
12. The laity have the right to enforce the maintenance
of authorised religious teaching by the machinery of the
accepted Church constitution.
13. The machinery by which the State ascertains the
observance of the terms on which ecclesiastical endow
ments and jurisdictions are retained, should not be vexatious
on the one hand, or revolutionary on the other.
14. In case of any readjustment of rights and duties
between Church and State, the clergy have a right to
accept or refuse by the action of their representative
assemblies. 15. Recent changes having done much to alter the
balance in Church and State, the Church has a right to
demand a readjustment on the ancient lines, limited by
what is called the Reformation Settlement.
16. Recent legislation having, by the removal of certain
ancient departments of jurisdiction from the ecclesiastical
to the Civil Courts, weakened the ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
both as to authority and as to the possession of skilled

338 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
and experienced judges, some measures should be taken
for strengthening the Ecclesiastical Judicature.
17. It is important that any attempt to settle and
strengthen Church Judicature should proceed on a states
manlike plan, and not be a mere attempt to stop gaps
and obviate incidental discontent by improvised remedies.
Such an attempt can only be made by a careful following
up of the lines of Ecclesiastical Constitution, and not on
speculative utilitarian principles or on the analogies of
political economy.
Supposing now that attempts are to be made on these
principles or any corresponding with them, before attempt
ing a scheme we have to ask (i) what shall be the qualifi
cations of the Court, and (2) what shall be the character
of the law ?
Granted that the Crown is supreme in all causes temporal
and spiritual, how would the recognition of that fact in
volve the necessity of making the Court consist of spiritual
or temporal persons ? I do not think that I need discuss
that as a matter at issue between the present contending
parties, as the one would probably refuse any spiritual
persons at all, and the other would determine that, if any
were admitted, their spiritual qualifications were to all
intents and purposes nullified by their position, in a Court
constituted by the State ; I am not aware that the objection
could be got over by the consent of the Convocations to
accept the Court offered for final appeal. Possibly it might,
but we are a long way from any such settlement. All this
has been debated over and over again, and I will not
trouble you with a reiteration.
I am afraid that I must add that, to my mind, the second
question wears only one aspect. The law to be declared
must be the law of the Church of England as it has existed
in practice since the abolition of the papal power ; including
the accepted laws of uniformity, the articles, the canons
of 1605 as modified since, the decisions of competent
Courts on particular cases, so far as those decisions can
be regarded as authoritative beyond the special case in

CHURCH AND STATE GOVERNMENT 339
which they were given ; and such a residuum of the ancient
Canon Law of Christendom as is not set aside by the sub
mission of the clergy in 1532 and subsequent legislation,
or such as can plead constant practical validity as having
been received and acted upon in our Courts since.
I am afraid that notwithstanding all that has been said
and written about the Canon Law in late years, I cannot
regard the Corpus Juris Canonici as containing for in
dividual clergymen any directive authority. Whatever
may have been its status as compared with Common Law
and Statute Law before the Reformation, and its relation
to the administration of the Courts of England — and on
this, as some of you may be aware, my own conclusions
have been seriously questioned by lawyers and clergy
lately — I cannot believe that there ever was a time when
it was possible, or that there is now a right for anyone
bound by loyal sanctions to the law of the Church of
England, and the authority which he acknowledges in his
ordination, to pick out of a great mass of jurisprudence,
most of whose conditions are altogether passed away, a
system by which he should consider himself, his conscience,
or his school, to be bound.
And if not in the Corpus Juris (in which the men of the
Reformation did recognise some scintillae of legality to
inhere, until they were able to produce their substitute, a
substitute which was only produced to be rejefcted), how can
it be found in the texts and rubrics of the Missal or other
service-books which were and are explicitly disavowed in
the Church and her services as well as in her juris
prudence ? I say no more about it.
Well, I have no doubt said more than I need have said,
and, considering the present projects of legislation, more
perhaps than I ought to have said, more than it was wise
for me to say. But I have not ventured into special detail,
either on the vexed question of the episcopal veto, or on
the minute features of a possible reconstruction.
I will not ask you to debate whether a Bishop should
be deprived of the power to determine what any magistrate
in any town Court can determine, whether a suit brought

340 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
into his Court may be dismissed as frivolous and vexatious
— or whether he is to be treated as plaintiff, judge, and
defendant in his own Courts, as liable to pay the costs of
all three parties, himself being unable to plead, testify, or
determine ; or many of the minute points which, notwith
standing their obviousness and necessity, are so terribly
awkward and expensive in the working. These are not
for us here. But I may, if you will listen to me, read to
you the account of a castle in the air which I built in 1883,
and which, being a monstrosity, as it was called at the time,
deserved the destruction it met with, rejection by twelve
votes to four.
It was a resolution for the scheme of reform of the
Final Court of Appeal : an alternative scheme to be re
commended in the Report of the Commission : —
" That for lack of justice at or in any of the Courts of
the Archbishops of this realm, it shall be lawful to the
parties grieved to appeal to the Queen's Majesty in
Council ; and that, upon every such appeal, the petition
of the appellant shall be referred to the Lord Chancellor to
examine into the same and report his opinion thereupon to
Her Majesty at that board; and that, if the Lord
Chancellor certify that, on consideration of the petition,
and having heard parties by their counsel, he considers
the points of law which arose on the proceedings so im
portant that it is fit they should be heard and determined
in the most solemn manner, he shall further report what
those points are, and whether they are points concerning
temporal right or spiritual law ; and thereupon it shall be
ordered that the points defined to be of temporal or civil
right be determined by the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council (or by the House of Lords, if Her Majesty
with the advice of the Privy Council shall so please) ; and
the points defined to be of spiritual law by the Arch
bishops and Bishops of the two provinces, who shall for
the purposes of these appeals be constituted and recognised
as a Court of doctrine."
I now come to the consideration of what I have called

PROTESTANTISM 341
the literary or academic side of what we are calling the
crisis, that which concerns the present state and origin of
parties in the Church of England.
Under this head I propose to make a few remarks on
only two points — the use of the word Protestant in
reference to the history and doctrinal attitude of the
Church of England ; and the place which what is called
the Oxford Movement had and has in the development of
the Church work of the present century.
Protestantism. I may as well put in the forefront of my remarks
that I think that there ought to be no hesitation in admit
ting that the Church of England since the Reformation
has a right to call herself, and cannot reasonably object to
be called, Protestant. Her attitude in relation to the see
of Rome has been, from the reign of Henry VIII., with
the exception of the reign of Queen Mary, an attitude of
protest It might be an interesting inquiry to ascertain
exactly the dates at which the term Protestant in its
original limited sense, beginning at the diet of Speyer,
became a part of the English language ; and by what
stages the original limited sense, early enough applied as
a designation of individual professors or reformers, was
extended collectively to all the confessions and com
munities that adopted this attitude. Probably in the
writings of theologians it retained its limitation, as con
trasted with the denomination of Reformed, until the
Thirty Years' War had shown to Lutherans and Calvinists
alike the oneness of their cause as against Rome. It was
only in a loose way that in the days of Hooker our Church
could have been called Protestant ; by the time of Chill-
ingworth the transition of meaning must have been
accepted, and when in the Declaration of Charles in 1642,
and in the coronation oath of William and Mary the
religion of the Church of England is described as Pro
testant Reformed religion, the word was simply meant to
denote the denial of Roman claims.
There can be no doubt that the English Reformation

342 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
owed a good deal to German Protestantism ; the text of
the Book of Common Prayer, and some part certainly of
the personal history of our reformers, would be quite
sufficient to prove this. In the same way the hand of the
Reformed or Geneva school, in both discipline and doctrine,
appears undeniably in the Church politics in the century
of Puritan struggles ; and in the history of the Lambeth
Articles and of the deliberations of the Synod of Dort,
the Calvinistic influence more nearly affected the doctrinal
views of English theologians than that of the Lutherans,
as Protestants, had ever done.
And yet the Church of England, Protestant as her
attitude was, and strongly inclined to the Reformed dog
matism as her theologians occasionally were, was never
committed by any act of her own, or by the nation speak
ing through her or for her, to any of the confessions
which, in doctrine or discipline, competed for the leading
place among Protestant communities ; still less did she
commit herself to any discipline that would have robbed
her of her Catholic and historic character. That the action
of the Puritans was sufficient to forbid.
Whilst, then, her whole history for the last three centuries
is in continuous protest against papal assumption, usurpa
tion, and false doctrine, it cannot for a moment be main
tained that she is, or ever has been, bound to any of the
dogmatic utterances or disciplinary machinery of any of
the communities that have called themselves Protestant;
or that, in her nearest approach to them, she has done
anything inconsistent with her independent and Catholic
identity. Her history and her symbolical books are her
own ; within these terms various doctrinal influences, and
more or less intimate sympathies, Lutheran, Calvinist,
Zwinglian, have had their range ; but, by God's mercy,
she has been kept from such corporate identification with
any of them as would imperil her status as a member of
the Catholic Church judged by the true Catholic standards.
She may be a Protestant Church, but her Protestant
attitude is the complement of her Catholic history.
Whilst, however, I distinctly claim for our Church her

PROTESTANTISM 343
full Catholic character unembarrassed by any such com
mittal, I would in the strongest way condemn the idea
that would repudiate the name of Protestant as a mere
name of negation, as well as the notion that the main
tenance of Protestant negation is the whole or the most
important part of our religious work and history. I should
unhesitatingly reject the theory that regards Protestantism
by itself, either at home or abroad, as a religious system
devoid of spiritual constructive energy.
Protestantism liberated in the age of the Reformation
forces of religious working which had been long cramped
and depressed. It was not done without much of the
risk of reaction ; it was done with much waste of time
and strength and logic ; and with much loss of charity, as
is exemplified in the controversial struggles which have
gone on, within and without its area, ever since.
But it was done. Theology, even through the miserable
caricature of controversy, began the great work of realising
the truth and efficacy of the Word of God. Even the
rivalry of competing and contending confessions deepened
and widened the knowledge of the law of God. One to
another, and to the watching Churches, the bearers of the
light ministered light even through the contention and
strife which by God's grace were kept from extinguishing
it. And the missionary work of the Gospel gained, it
may be surely said, more than it lost; far off as we still
may be from that manifestation of unity in which the
world shall know the message of Him who was sent for
the saving of it It cannot be maintained that Protestant
ism, even in its most meagre aspect, can be regarded as
outside the discipline by which good has been worked
within and without the Church in the changes of the years
of the right hand of the Most Highest.
The Protestant Religion is, I think, the historical and
reasonable expression for collective application. I do
not like the term the Protestant Church, or the Protestant
Faith. If the words mean any real thing, they must
mean the Catholic Church or the Catholic Faith, set free
from Roman subjection and what that subjection implies :

344 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
the Catholic Church system and the Catholic Faith, in
various combinations, with various limitations and various
sad variations in doctrine and discipline, organic im
perfections even, which the grace of Him who is the Head
of the Body will set right in His good time. I protest,
however, most strongly against the use of the venerable
word as a colourable description of a negative and per
secuting policy ; a policy which is just now proceeding to
assail, one after another, the great historic and theological
truths on which the character of the Church of England is
based, and which is trying to force into every country
parish the elements of controversy, the suggestions of
treachery and falsehood, which are to poison the whole
relations of the pastor and the people.
The Oxford Movement.
The other point on which I want to put a word or two
on record — on such record as a Visitation Charge can put
anything — is that of the place which what is called the
Oxford Movement, the movement represented by the
Tracts for the Times, Tractarianism as it is still called,
by the work of Keble and Pusey, the earlier work of
Newman, the later work of Charles Marriott and Liddon,
has in the history of English religion. We know too
well by now how that movement is at present regarded
in certain popular circles; as a reactionary, disloyal, under
hand, intriguing conspiracy of a few not very able but
very pertinacious traitors, to lead us on or to lead us back
to the state of things from which the Reformation rescued
us, the state of sacerdotalism, Jesuitry, antiquarian dog
matism, effete ritualism, immoral dependence on exploded
ordinances, false morality, and venal repentance, and that
system of direction and discipline which ages of corruption
had devised to make the world comfortable in sinning.
Very hard language is current about this — language which
those who know the truth can tolerate because it carries
its own refutation ; but which is convincing enough to the
class of people who will believe any evil about men and
parties with whom they do not agree, and who have

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT 345
neither the power nor the means nor the will to criticise
such accusations. It is a strange thing that after sixty
years of hard work, spiritual, moral, intellectual ; work
in parishes, schools, brotherhoods, sisterhoods, hospitals,
and missions; work on old and on new models; and
work permeated with prayer in every detail, the odium of
Tractarianism is weighing down now, after all those years
of patience, many good enterprises, simply on the strength
and density of such prejudice.
It is of course impossible for me to treat this in any
detail at all. Fortunately we have in the memoirs and
correspondence of some of the chief workers of the Oxford
Movement more than sufficient evidence to convince honest
men of the falsity of the charges, if they would only read
them : and they are more likely to read them than to read
my words about them. But I wish, as I said, in a few
sentences to state my view of the place of the movement
in our own history : not as exemplifying the mischiefs of
the strife of parties, or the personal agencies acting for
or against the success of either ; but as trying to trace the
development for the strengthening of good influences and
spiritual life which God has given us by these means ;
given us in earthen vessels it is true, and sometimes
through men who failed us in the most critical time of
trial, but still marking the life of our Church in a grand
period of her growth.
We must look back further than to the year 1833. I
must remind you that the revival of spiritual energy, of
which the Evangelical and the High Church movements
are to some extent the rival agencies, was not peculiar to
England ; it was a revival going on all through Europe,
partly following from a reaction against the state of things
which politically was broken up by the French Revolution,
and partly by the need of resistance to the state of things
that followed that crucial and typical turning-point.
Before the Revolution religious life throughout the West
had been dropping into a state of semi-consciousness ; it
was largely political and very inactive for good work ; not,
however, so far as to extinguish good influences which,

346 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
attenuated and repressed, checked and ridiculed, when they
made themselves apparent, still kept alive traditions and
principles of a great past. This is true of the Roman as
well as of the Protestant communities.
The Revolution broke up this somnolent condition, and
when it had passed away, left Europe, England, States
and Churches too, in great danger of solution, and in even
greater danger from the measures devised to prevent it
By-and-by the purer air prevailed ; men began to recognise
their shortcomings ; even whilst we were being shaken by
the forces of the Revolution, the formation of the great
societies for missions and education showed where the line
of life was to look for revival. Then came an age of
reform, of liberal reform, premature in its theories, unfair
in its estimates of good and evil, of old things and new,
but zealous and somewhat extravagant in its methods.
As the air cleared the men of thought saw more clearly
into the past, and tried to see into the future ; did see in
the present what measures of change it was well to promote
and what to resist. A wave of revival passed over our
Christendom ; I should hope that its effects are still
working, and we ourselves working in them.
But whilst we regard this as a sort of physical ex
planation of semi-physical phenomena, we see at the same
time that, when religious life was roused into new energy,
it had to begin with the elements that had lived and
worked through the semi-conscious period and the reaction
that followed. I will not trouble you with speculations on
what took place abroad, although the history of German
thought and of Roman developments are interesting as
parallels and contrasts to our own experiences.
Confining ourselves to England, we see the rise in
succession of two considerable schools : the Evangelical
school looking back through Newton, Romaine, Scott, and
other well-known leaders, to the higher theology of the
Puritans, and the popular movements of Whitfield and
Wesley; and the High Church school, as it was called,
looking through a narrow but well-defined succession of
teachers and workers to the age of the Nonjurors and

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT 347
of Law, and through them to the Caroline divines, to
Andrewes, and Laud, and Hooker, and the constructive
theology of the Reformation. You may observe my
omission of some great names, such as Butler, but we
have to remember that the energy of the religious action
of his day was directed mainly against shallow intellectual
infidelity, and, with all its sincerity and forcible logic, did
not produce much effect on the moral and spiritual lethargy
of the Hanoverian period.
There were thus two schools of reviving religious energy
within the Church of England as without it I think that
this is a true account of their origin and revivals. They
had their natural home, one at Cambridge, the other at
Oxford, with some little inheritance of rival politics and
rival forms of scholarship ; and they inherited some of the
older watchwords, Calvinism and Arminianism, for instance,
and theories that are denoted by those names. So they
stood when we older ones began to know right from wrong.
I am taking the privilege of an old man in speaking at
this length, and still more in speaking a word of personal
experience. If I am wrong, please pardon me, it is soon
said. I began life in a centre of Evangelical energy ; a
real school of life, narrow it may be, even slightly Calvin
istic in its attitude of dogma, but most devoted, generous,
studious ; too much self- contained to be uncharitable,
and placidly recognising its position as a true and faithful
guardian of souls, although not the only one: on the whole
in a minority of influence, but not ambitious, thoroughly
pastoral, given to missionary and school work quite in
advance of common opinion, and above all things devoted
to the study of the Bible. I have often thought that,
if I had had time to write a history of that time and
neighbourhood, I could have drawn a picture that would
put more modern pretensions to shame, both as to work
and as to spirit From such a training I came to Oxford :
in my first term I looked on at the break up of the
Tractarian phalanx, as it was called, the crisis of Ward
and Newman and the shock to the Church, and the dismay
that followed. So I saw from the beginning the working

348 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
of the continuous life of the faithful men of the movement,
many of whom I learned to know and love. I had already
tried to understand the provocative process which had
been at work in the contest for the Poetry Professorship
which preceded the crisis and began the bitterness. And
I was well aware of the social results that followed the
work of Dr. Hook and the parochial side of Church revival
in the North. And so my later experience grew out of
my earlier: I trust by real growth, certainly not by
antagonism or reaction, for I knew so much that was good
in both schools that I may have gone too far perhaps,
here, as elsewhere, to elaborate a theory, a consciousness
of continuity. I thank God for the blessings I have had
from both ; and there is nothing more painful to me than
to see them, as occasionally one must see them, in a
rivalry that scarcely remembers charity.
I have no wish to characterise by personalities my ex
perience of the later phases : fifty-five years of Oxford
life must stand rather as the warrant of my authority to
speak than of my inerrancy of judgment And I would
not like to tinge the view that I am trying to put before
you by throwing the shadow of the present on the past.
At the risk of repetition, I will say to you what I said
thirty-two years ago, when, in some respects, things were
looking darker than they look now.
" The energy of the revival " (I was speaking of the
renewal of energy in the first years of this century) " was
anti-dogmatic and sentimental rather than critical : it was
partial, and contained in itself the element of weakness
and narrowness. So far, the same may be said of both the
parties that divided it ; the one active, benevolent, un
critical ; the other active, benevolent, and fastidious ; the
one was learned and unimpassioned, the other full of zeal
but despising knowledge.
" The Evangelical reaction soon outran its companions
— its plans of usefulness became rapidly popular, and the
very easiness of its formula contributed to make the
profession of religion itself comparatively easy. For the
first thirty years of the century all the popular religion

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT 349
ran in this groove : exposed to much obloquy from the
enemies of religion, but ending in making its way and
working out some great results.
" At the end of that period we saw a further step : a new
movement that originated in the revival of learning, in the
consciousness that zeal and personal piety are, without
fixed views of truth and the power of defending them, an
inadequate safeguard against infidelity, and that a new
training must be gone through before the Church of that
generation was fit to meet its foes. I need not, cannot
dwell on the minutiae of that awakening. We all know
how it grew and how it did its work. We know how far it
failed and how far it succeeded ; that so far as personal
influences and disproportioned views of truth went, it
failed, exposing its workers to intolerable trials in the way
of calumny and persecution, and driving into controversial
extremes the energies that should have been suffered to
work out the thoroughly dogmatic revival. But, practically,
the results of that short work were wonderful, to be seen in
every village church, to be heard in every sermon, to be
felt in the administration of every parish. Never since
the Reformation had there been such a change, and the
influences that wrought it were more intellectual and more
spiritual than those which effected the Reformation.
" All that was personal and simply reactionary in that
movement failed ; all that was of principle and that tended
to progress and edification succeeded. Far beyond the
range of personal and scholastic interest, the influence has
won its way. In the deepening of knowledge, in the
immense improvement in education, in the vast and rapid
extension of the Church in the Colonies, the true Church
of the future, in the development of Christian art, in the
infinite opening up of new work for roused spiritual
energies, that movement has done a work that can never,
on a broad view of history, seem of less than the first
importance. ' Their sound went into all lands. . . .'
Yet, ' we learned that our treasure was in earthen vessels,
that the excellency may be of God, and not of us.' "
When I spoke thus, the reaction that was before my mind

350 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
was a reaction into intellectual degeneration. A phase of
that has passed over us, and has taken, and is still taking,
new forms, out of which our Almighty Lord, in the versa
tility of His husbandry, will assuredly bring us confidence
and strength in victory.
There has been time for other developments ; and recru-
descent periods of wanton disloyalty and controversial
intolerance, of which in 1867 we had scarcely a notion,
much less a prospect : a state of things which was stimu
lated by the events of 1874, and which seems to have
reached a climax now. For I cannot conceal from myself
that it is from a perverse exaggeration of some of the
principles of the Oxford Movement, and a disproportionate
treatment of points of order and ritual, which the first and
second series of workers in that movement had overlooked
or neglected, that some of the ritual extravagances which
are now troubling us have resulted. They have been, I
believe, misconstrued by critics in a way against which wise
cautions and careful instructions might at one period have
safeguarded them. They have been treated by opponents
as implying more than legal disloyalty, absolutely im
moral and treasonable perversity, and such treatment has
naturally served to exasperate the temper and to harden
the obstinacy of the offenders. The ignorance of neo
phytes has further complicated the difficulties of managing
and repressing absurdities.
Of this, at this moment I am not bound or disposed to
speak. It is a matter of great grief to me; but of one thing
I am sure, that the disloyalty of one extreme wing of the
present combatants, if I am to call them so, is as far from
the doctrinal and disciplinary policy and character of the
Oxford Movement as the intolerant agitation, which I
spoke of at first, is against the devoted, loving, and generous
policy and character of the Evangelical school as I knew
it years ago, and as from my heart, I believe, that I know
it in this diocese to-day.
I thank God that in this diocese I can rely on the loyalty
of both the schools and on their willing co-operation in
good work. But we are a part of a great Church in which

SACERDOTALISM 351
there are troubles that cannot but affect us. We pray our
Captain of Salvation to rule and govern and guide us, that
we may fight a good fight against the abundant evil, being
at peace one with another.
Sacerdotalism. The more general and organised attack on the Church
of England through the clergy, which is at present in the
course of development, although I must say that I hope
that it has reached its climax, or its bathos, may, I think,
be characterised as having for its cry the charge of
sacerdotalism. I do not wish to say much about this,
because I know that every word I may say is only too
likely to be misinterpreted, if not actually misrepresented.
But I must not dismiss the crisis without a few words to
indicate where I see the possibility of violent attack and
weak defence. Sacerdotalism is not only an awkward
war-cry, but it is a point of attack, or the name, I should
say, is given to a point or points of attack, which require
not only firm and discreet, but intelligent and honest
defence. I do not see why I should hesitate to express my grief
and disgust at the ways in which this word has been used
of late years, not only in the simple but honest ignorance of
parliamentary utterances, but in the speeches and letters
of men who might be expected to know better and to be
more careful of their language. For indeed, in the wide
phalanx of assailants, the word "sacerdotalism" is em
ployed so comprehensively that it seems to include every
thing that anybody can dislike, and as all people do not
Uke the same things, it includes a great deal that an
educated Churchman believes to be historically and theo
logically true and precious: the use of the Creeds, the law
of marriage, education at the Universities, the Authorised
Version of the Bible, intercourse with foreign Churches,
the progress of modern science, the history of the Court of
Delegates, the consecration of Barlow and Parker, the
practice of evening Communion, and social questions up
wards and downwards, not forgetting the abuses resulting

352 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
from the practical profanation of the Lord's Day. Like
the French use of the word " clericalism," it is made to
cover anything that anybody who can make his voice
heard may wish to challenge as being above or below
his own standard of faith, morals, or manners. This is no
caricature. There is no novelty in this. The reformers of the
sixteenth century, judged by their utterances recorded by
Foxe, seem with some variation of words to comprehend
in the term all things objectionable, to accumulate on the
priests, against whom they were arrayed, all the iniquities
that all priests of all ages and all religions had brought upon
society, all their sins, their pretensions, and their mischiefs.
Luther held much the same opinion about Bishops, and
was followed by the Puritans of the next generation, who
followed him in little else. It is a grievous proof of the
existence of some unchangeable features of religious
history, that we find in the current literature of the
day specimens of the ribald profanity of the Martin
Marprelate controversy, which was the great disgrace of
Puritanism. Sacerdotalism is a term of censure, reproach, and stigma,
applied by controversialists to those who hold erroneous
views, or views opposed to their own, on the Christian
Ministry ; and, of course, by those who reject the Christian
Priesthood altogether, to those who believe and maintain
it. The word means different things, or different views of
the same things, in the mouths of those who discuss it
without regard to this distinction. Those, for instance, who
appeal to great names of scholars and divines, as having
proved that there is no such thing as sacerdotalism
warranted in Holy Scripture and primitive antiquity,
should be warned that they ought to be quite sure that the
sacerdotalism which they attack is indeed the same thing
that the scholars to whom they appeal have treated of;
as well as to inquire whether other quite as great scholars
have not proved that the principles assailed have the
fullest warrant that the study of history and the Word
can give. It is well, before we attempt to balance authori-

SACERDOTALISM 353
ties, to ascertain that the scholars and divines are treating
of the same thing. So, too, when we are told by one
assailant that at the Reformation the Church of England
finally and summarily broke with sacerdotalism, and im
mediately after by another, equally positive, that the Prayer
Book is full of sacerdotalism and requires to be revised
before it can be regarded as expressive of the religion
of the Reformation, we can see at once that the word
means, must mean in the mind of the speakers, two
different things, or two very different aspects of the
same thing ; or else that one or both of their statements
is false.
The word, however, as it seems to be thus generally
applied in the present debate, would cover the whole
system, doctrinal and disciplinary, which rages round the
in.stitution of the Christian Priesthood, and however the
Christian Priesthood is defined, limited, or extended, with
all its history, its sanctions, its developments, its functions,
its powers, its uses, and its abuses — for we can deny
neither. What is the root of our offence ? Has He not said, " As
My Father has sent Me, even so send I you " ? Are we
not heirs of the promise, that " He who receiveth whom
soever I send, receiveth Me " ? Are we to renounce our
high calling because it has been misinterpreted, or even
because it has been misused? "Receive ye the Holy
Ghost for the office of a priest in the Church of God."
Surely it is a high dignity and a weighty office and
charge to be messengers, watchmen, and stewards of the
Lord. Together with the dignity goes the responsibility, the
onerous responsibility of the charge. Professional assump
tion, the airs and graces of which are alike fatal to the
character and to the usefulness of the man who asserts
them ; the attitude of the clergyman who stands or sits
aloof from his flock, oftener to be found in his study, wait
ing to be consulted, than in the schools gathering in the
lambs, or in the lanes gathering in the outcasts, or in the
homes of the poor, ministering the comfort of sympathy in
2 A

354 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
things secular as well as spiritual — assumption, the ostenta
tious exhibition of the clerical form of self-sufficiency — the
ridiculous pretension to austerity that is of mere manner
ism ; the claim of special rights of not being contradicted
or advised — the position asserted in the words, which we
sometimes hear of as spoken by the young clergyman who
has not yet learned the burden of sympathy or the in
valuable remedy of humility, " I am a priest " — with no
realisation of the mind that was in Christ Jesus ; — all this,
be it real and guilty, or unreal and silly, or however else
it may be, is an offence greater against the Lord and the
brethren and the flock than against the world outside.
But it is not the sacerdotalism of which the outcry just
now proclaims the danger and the risk. The danger and
the risk is about the idea itself, not about the caricature
of it detected in the mannerism of weak men. The struggle
and the crisis is about something far more real, deeper,
more general, and essential. What can it be ?
Well, the root of the matter must be sought in the
demand which the spiritual nature of man makes and
which religion tries to satisfy — the demand for a higher
sanction of law and conduct than the unassisted reason
without revelation can furnish ; such sanction must be
provided by the agency of one who can claim authority,
by a class that claims authority, and that an authority
that rests on spiritual assumptions admitted by the faith
of believers. Any authority of any form of religion is
open to this inevitable charge of sacerdotalism, the original
offensiveness of the claim to be received as authoritative,
on other grounds than the mere voluntary adhesion, or the
personal apprehension of the man on whom it is brought
to bear. Under so wide a generalisation must come many
things that are good and true, and many that are false
and evil.
It would be impossible for me to attempt to calculate
the combinations in which the element of sacerdotalism
may be traced ; or to differentiate the forms in which such
assumptions may clothe themselves in various departments
of life. It is just possible, and must be sufficient for us

SACERDOTALISM 355
now to see how the application of the term to the position
of our ministry and the system of the Church becomes
of practical importance ; that is, how and where the attack
is serious and sincere, and aimed at something which,
although misunderstood, is real ; and consequently how
the misunderstanding may be got rid of and the defence
be effectual.
I. The commission of the ministry of Bishops, priests,
and deacons cannot be exempted from the schedule
of things open to the general charge of sacerdotalism, for
it claims a higher sanction than the will of the congrega
tion to which it ministers, and appeals to external historical
evidence which the congregation may judge, but can
neither make nor unmake.
2. The doctrine of the Sacraments is a doctrine which
claims for them a divine authorship, the authority of a
divine command, and the certainty that there is a higher
agency than the will of man engaged in their operation
and validity ; to which the unbelief and misuse of the
recipients may present a bar, but which is not created
by their faith or made unreal by their misuse or
neglect. 3. The discipline of religious authority is a discipline
which is not to be restricted exclusively to our own Church
or community, but which bases its authority on the Word
of God as the Word of God, in definite historic interpreta
tion, and in the experience of the lives which have grown
up under it.
Of course, these points do not cover the whole ground
to which, as a name of disreputable connotation, it may be
made to extend. But they are points on which the original
hostility that gives the reproacli naturally and instinctively
fixes itself They are the points in the constitution of
Churches which contain the reality of the thing, and in
which, accordingly, religious controversy, as well as popular
prejudice, find their easiest approach. I suppose one
might say that the origin of the objection lies in the
presumed intervention of a human element as a vehicle
pf the working of the Spirit of God; that is the ideal

356 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
working of the corporeity of the Church through her
ministers. If I have in this approximated to the reality of the idea
that is the inspiring idea of the attack, it is unnecessary,
and, indeed, impossible, to work out the detail of either
that or the defence that is required. If I am wrong, it
would be not only unnecessary, but misleading.
But let me say a word of caution on two points which,
in the popular mind, give colour and complexion to the
method of attack, and which we cannot afford, and, indeed,
do not desire, to disregard. Please to remember that I am
trying to treat the question not on its whole merits, but on
the conditions of its present development; and that a word
of caution is not a treatise, or discussion of argument, for
or against.
First, then, we are told that sacerdotalism is an injury to
the laity ; and, second, that in the Church of England it is
an infection of popery.
I. The Church does not consist of the clergy alone ; it
contains the laity also — laity with rights and duties ; laity
the majority, at all events, of the flock, for the sake of
which the ministry exists. That is true ; it is of the very
fundamental truth of Church life: the minister of the
Church is the servant of his flock before God, and the
servant of God to them ; if that consideration is eliminated,
sacerdotalism richly deserves all the evil that is said of it
It is one thing to say this and to say it heartily; it is
another thing to listen with patience to the saying, " The
laity are against you, the laity are your masters ; what
they want to hear you are to preach ; what they do not
want to hear you are not to preach. You are their paid
servants ; obey their command, give way to their outcry,
or your incomes shall be stopped. They have outgrown
pupilage ; do as the laity bid you."
When we hear this — and when and where do not we
hear it ? — we have to ask who are the laity ; what right
have their self-authorised champions to use their name;
what are their rights and duties ; what are the legal and
constitutional conditions according to which their influence

SACERDOTALISM 357
can be rightly employed, or has been rightly used to affect
the conduct of their ministers — their Bishops, priests, and
deacons ?
A wise defence involves the consideration of all this,
and much more. The Puritan agitator is not the laity ;
and the machinery of agitation is more like a counter-
sacerdotalism than the work of an organised, or even
disorganised, constituent of the one body of the Church
of God.
When we talk about the laity in this connexion, let us
try to be clear as to who they are, and what they say, and
within what laws and conditions they have a right to say
what they do say. It will not be done in a quarter of an
hour. Then there is the old cry about popery. Sacerdotalism
has infected the clergy — sacerdotalism is, or involves all
that is in popery : the work of the Reformation was the
emancipation from sacerdotalism.
2. Well, we are Protestant. True. These things and
ideas exist in popery; we must have nothing to do with
them. What are we to say now ?
The difficulty of dealing with this phase is considerable.
We know what the points at issue between our Church and
the Roman Church are : they have been worked thread
bare in the discussions of the last two, of the last three
hundred years. We know what we hold in common ; we
know that for many centuries our forefathers, to whom,
humanly speaking, we owe the maintenance of Christian
life in this land, held the faith, mixed and confounded with
much Romish error, but still the faith of Christ, by which
we spiritually live. But we know also the points at issue,
at what cost we gained them, and what we owe to them
and those who won them. But the people who attack us,
as sacerdotalists and Papists in disguise, are on quite a
different level and theory. Perhaps we do not realise their
points or their prejudices; most certainly they do not
realise ours.
I do not think of the few Roman Catholics that I know
as out of the pale of charity. I do not think or believe

358 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
that the converts of the present century are, taken as a
whole, representative of the popular idea of Jesuitry ; I do
not imagine that any one of them, certainly none whom I
have known, made his change without deep searchings of
heart, or forfeiture of something that was very precious.
I do know that of the errors against which we as Protes
tants protest, there is not one that is not caused by the
disproportionate treatment of some element of some
greater truth. But how can we join in a cry that con
founds all persons and things ; and how can we profit by
a defence that entirely disregards the consideration of the
points about which the conflict of opinion rages? Are
we traitors because we cannot join in a war against the
whole catholicity of the Church, Roman or Protestant
alike? Can we welcome the aid of parties and partisans
whose arguments and tactics embarrass us at every turn,
and threaten to demolish, not at all all that we attack, but
pretty nearly all that we have to defend, and the means
which we have to defend it? Again I say, when we are
talking about popery, let us be quite sure that what we
defend is worth defending, and what we attack is worth
attacking. We shall not learn it in the arena of present
controversy. But these matters cannot be disposed of by general
charges, however elaborated, or general defences, however
comprehensive. There is no branch of life's work into
which religion does not enter ; there is no form of religion
into which the risk of the abuse of spiritual influence may
not enter; there is no region of human influence into
which the controversy of sacerdotalism cannot be forced
by those who will condescend to use a catching term of
opprobrium, half understood and entirely misused. The
debate, if it is to be a debate, must be on definite lines and
definite topics. It is as absurd to say that everything
Roman is false, as to say that everything Roman is true :
or to say that everything sacerdotal is right, as that every
thing sacerdotal is wrong: or to say that that only is
Catholic on which the seal of Rome is set, or that only
Protestant that denies something on which the awakened

CONTROVERSY 359
sense of the Reformation pronounced a hasty condem
nation. Well, in saying this, I am indulging in the very
form of generalisation against which I am protesting.
Dolus latet in generalibus ; they who are to strive in these
matters must strive discreetly, and strive lawfully. And
may it not be well sometimes to remember the caution:
" The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be o-entle
unto all men "?

Controversy. A final word on controversy — it must needs be, for
men's minds, attitudes, and circumstances differ so widely
even whilst they look on the same truths and uphold them
as truths. But woe to the man by whom, whether through
neglect of duty, or intolerance of difference, or the arro
gance of ignorance, or that self-confidence of self-will which
is practically unbelief, the offence cometh.
The malice which is the cancerous bane of controversy,
the malice of misrepresentation, of ready belief of evil,
of the imputation of hateful motives ; the ignoring of all
good in the opponents, and the instinct for discovering
moral evil in that which one dislikes, the malice of over
statement for or against, an overstatement that leads the
controversialist imperceptibly far away from the original
position of truth that he justified himself in defending ; the
malice of misconstruction, of anonymous charges, and
cruel personalities : —
This is what demoralises theological discussion, and so
spreads widely and deeply the form of unbelief which is
most critical in these days — the fatal impression on the
many who are so easy to alienate from the faith, that those
who contend in ways and on principles irreconcilable with
the theory that they are defending cannot and do not
believe in their own cause : and the terrible corruption of
mind and manners as well as of religion which historically
and logically follows ever on an age of controversial em-
bitterment. Men will not believe the truths that do not
bring with them the strong evidence of charity, and which
those who maintain them maintain with weapons abso-

360 FOURTH VISITATION CHARGE
lutely forbidden by the law that they would say they
strive for.
Nothing in this world can justify the malice of con
troversy — no, not even the love of the Eternal Truth, if we
could conceive it to operate in combination with it. No
truth in the world is worth fighting for with weapons like
these : nothing in the world is so certain as, and nothing
in heaven more certain than, the authority of the law
of love.

PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BEENDON AND SON, PRINTERS

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Second Impression.
THE MINISTRY OF CONVERSION. By the Rev. A. J.
Mason, D.D., Lady Margaret's Reader in Divinity in the University of Cam
bridge, and Canon of Canterbury.
" It will be found most valuable and interesting."— Gxai-rfjflK.
"Canon Mason has given a manual that should be carefully studied by all, whether clergy or
laity, who have in any way to share in the ' Ministry of Conversion' by preaching, by parochial
organisation, or by personal influence." — Scottish Guardian.

1banJ>booF?e for tbe Q\tx<y8— continued.
Crown 8vo, price 2s. d6. each Volume.
Third Impression.
FOREIGN MISSIONS. By the Right Rev. H. H. Mont-
GOMERY, D.D.. formerly Bishop of Tasmania, Secretary of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
. " Bishop Montgomery's admirable little book. . . . Into a limited compass he has compressed
the very kind of information which gives gne an adequate impression of the spirit which pervades
a religion, of what is its strength and weakness, what its relation to Christianity, what the side
upon which it must be approached."— C/iwrcA Quarterly Revieu'.
Second Impression.
THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS. By the Very Rev. J.
Armitage Robinson, D.D., Dean of Westminster.
" Nothing could be more desirable than that the Anglican clergy should be equipped with
knowledge of the kind to which this little volume will introduce them, and should regard the
-questions with which Biblical study abounds in the candid spirit, and with the breadth of view
which they see here exemp]ified."~-Spectator.
" The little book on the Gospels, which the new Dean of Westminster has recently published,
is one to be warmly commended alike to clergy and laity. Any intelligent person who takes the
trouble to work through this little volume of 150 pages will be rewarded by gaining from it as
clear a view of the synoptic problem as is possible without prolonged and independent study of
the sources." — The Pilot.
A CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC. By the Very Rev. Wil-
ford L. RobbinSj Dean of Albany, U.S., Author of " An Essay toward Faitli".
" We commend this handbook with confidence as a helpful guide to those clergy and teachers
who have thoughtful doubters to deal with, and who wish to build safely if they build at all." —
Church of Ireland Gazette.
" The Dean of Albany has produced one of the most valuable of Evidential treatises published
in our time. It is all the more available for practical use, because there is not, from beginning
to end, a word to indicate the ecclesiastical location or proclivity of the writer. The book will
be as welcome to the Free Churchman as to the Anglican," — Sunday School Chronicle.
PASTORAL VISITATION. By the Rev. H. E. Savage,
M.A. , Vicar of South Shields, and Hon. Canon of Durham.
*' This is an excellent hoo\i.'*— Spectator.
THE STUDY OF CHURCH HISTORY. By the Rev. W.
E. Collins, M.A., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in King's College, London,
and Chairman of the Church Historical Society. \In preparation.
AUTHORITY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF OBEDI
ENCE. By the Very Rev. T. B. STRONG, D.D., Dean of Christ Church.
\Jn preparatio7i.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. By the Rev. P. N. Waggett,
M.A. , of the Society of St, John the Evangelist, Cowley. [In preparation .
LAY WORK. By the Right Rev. Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs,
D. D. , Lord Bishop'of Southwarlc. [/„, preparation.
CHURCH MUSIC. By Madeley Richardson, Mus. Doc.
Organist of St. Saviour's Collegiate Church, Southwark. [In preparation.
INTEMPERANCE. By the Rev. H. H. Pereira, M.A.,
Vicar of Croydon, and Hon. Canon of Canterbury. [In preparation-.
SCHOOLS. By the Rev. W. Foxley Morris, M.A., Rectoi
of Barnsley, and Hon. Canon of Vi^orcester. [In preparation.

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