parishes, 3500 had no more means of education than were to be found among the Hottentots. In many districts there were no schools at all, in others none but nonconformist Sunday schools. The county of Middlesex was the worst-educated district in Christendom. His bill required that all teachers should be members of the Church of England, and hold a certificate from the incumbent of the parish; the parson was to fix the course of teaching; the Bible, and no other religious book, was to be read in all such schools, and no distinctive catechism was to be used. The former provision was likely to alienate Dissenters, the latter The bill is Church people; and the bill, at Lord Castlereagh's request, was not proceeded with after the first reading. But it had done its work in rousing the mind of the nation to this most important subject. dropped. The voluntary system, as locally administered, was in public favour, and Church influence greatly predominated; but the Dissenters were active in opposition, and saw in any State interference a probable gain to the State Church, whilst the clergy were conscious of an obligation laid upon them, and did not know how to discharge it, owing to the pressure of population. SUMMARY OF CHURCH BUILDING ACT 1818 AN ACT FOR BUILDING. ADDITIONAL CHURCHES IN POPULOUS PARISHES, 58 George III. c. 45 (30 May 1818). § 1 Empowers the King to authorise the issue of one million of Exchequer bills to the Commissioners for carrying into execution the purposes of the Act; §§ 13, 14 to expend money on church building or in aid of church building in places which have a population of not less than 4000 and church accommodation for not more than 2000, or in any place where there are 1000 people resident more than four miles from any church or chapel, regard being had (§ 15) to local circumstances of population, pecuniary ability, etc. Parishes may (§ 16) be divided into new parishes, with due distribution of tithes and other endowments, or into parochial districts to be served by Curates (§ 21), such district parishes being held as Perpetual Curacies (§ 24) and the patronage of them (§ 67) given to the patron of the parish churches. The Crown may grant, or the Commissioners acquire, and parishes are required to furnish, sites for building (§§ 34-55); the security for moneys advanced by the Commissioners to be the church rates of the parish, on which security (§§ 58, 59) the churchwardens also may borrow, to build or enlarge IV SUMMARY OF ACTS 99 churches and chapels (§ 59), but not without the consent of the ratepayers in vestry. § 62 empowers the Commissioners to build churches and chapels as required and to draw plans for the same, divided into free seats and pews to be let as they think fit, the pew rents (§§ 63, 64) to be assigned as stipends to clergy serving the church. Arrangements are made (§§ 65, 66) for third services, and for the payment (not less than £80) of curates performing such services. SUMMARY OF CHURCH BUILDING ACT 1828 AN ACT TO ABOLISH CHURCH BRIEFS, AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE THE PURPOSES OF ENLARGING AND BUILDING CHURCHES AND § I Repeals 4 Anne c. 14. § 2 Incorporates the Society for promoting the enlargement and building of churches and chapels. § 3. Archbishop of Canterbury to be President, the bishops and twenty-five laymen Vice-Presidents. §§ 4-9. Constitution of the Society. § 10. All sums collected for this purpose under Royal Letters to be paid over to the Society's Treasurer. § 11. Accounts to be presented annually to His Majesty. §§ 12-15. Compensation for Briefs. AUTHORITIES: GENERAL.-Andrew Bell, Rise and Progress of Mutual Tuition. BIOGRAPHIES: The New Plan of Education, by Sarah Trimmer; Elements of Tuition, by Andrew Bell; Elementary Education, by Dean Gregory; Bishop Blomfield, by A. Blomfield; Andrew Bell, by Southey; Joseph Lancaster, by D. Salmon; Robert Raikes, by Alfred Gregory. CHAPTER V Bishop Porteus. ABUSES AND REFORMS It is difficult in a hurrying age to understand a time when leisure was one of the attributes of high place, and ministers of State and bishops spent their time as they liked. In these days a bishop may be worldly, avaricious, self-seeking, but he cannot well be idle. He must attend a multitude of functions sacred and secular, receive deputations, and answer innumerable letters. At the beginning of the century a Bishop of Winchester could finish his correspondence in the morning and go out to sketch in the park after luncheon. Bishops were not expected even to live in their dioceses, if it was inconvenient to do so. Bishop Porteus (17311808) held the rich living of Hunton in Kent with the See of Chester, enjoying at Hunton the charms of the country and the company of 'ancient and longestablished families' in the neighbourhood, and thus securing for himself what his biographer calls 'a judicious mixture of society and retirement.' 'The smoothest wing,' said Hannah More, will be ruffled by the crowd and pressure of the bustling world.' He gave up Hunton when he became Bishop of London, but still was able to spend some months of every year in a cottage in Sundridge in Kent. He had residences also in Cumberland, Lancashire, and Chester. Yet Bishop Porteus was the intimate friend and spiritual adviser of Hannah More, and had a high reputation as an energetic bishop and a conscientious and religious man, and in ecclesiastical politics was in advance of his time. He supported the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Sunday school CHAP. V PORTEUS, WATSON, AND BARRINGTON 101 movement, the abolition of the slave trade, the cause of missions, the residence of clergy, the better payment of curates; he wished for some relief both for Roman Catholics and Dissenters, some revision of the Liturgy and the Articles. He came forward at the risk of unpopularity and loss of court favour to protest against the profanation of Good Friday and the fashionable custom of Sunday concerts and assemblies. How are we to judge such a man, or the standards of the society in which he lived? Watson. Bishop Watson of Llandaff (1737-1816) (of whom a full account has been given by Canon Overton in Volume VII. of this History), an honest man whom his politics and an uncourtly freedom of speech kept from Bishop promotion, and if not a pattern Churchman, certainly above the average of the time, would appear, judging by our standards, to have had no sense of obligation. He was made Professor of Chemistry, a subject of which he was completely ignorant, within five years of his B.A. degree, and Regius Professor of Divinity four years later, being as little skilled in theology as he had been in chemistry. En sacrum codicem was his answer to inquirers. The Bible is enough. He prided himself on being autodidakтos, and cared little for Church authority. His toleration was carried so far as to make him refuse to subscribe to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, because he thought its promoters more anxious to convert Dissenters than heathen. He appears to have visited his diocese only once; he held sixteen livings; he desired to be remembered as an improver of land and a planter of trees. Bishop The biography of Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham (1734-1826), is typical as that of a high-born and courtly prelate, who was also a scholar and a Christian. He was the son of the first Lord Barrington, and Barrington. was born in 1734. He was educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. His first promotion was as chaplain-in-ordinary to George II. He was made Canon of Christ Church in 1761, Canon of St. Paul's in 1768, and in 1769 of St. George's, Windsor. The next year, being only thirty-six years old, he became Bishop of Llandaff, and by subsequent translations Bishop of Salisbury and of Durham. Thus his whole life was spent in dignified leisure, for to write 'from two to nine letters daily' would be hardly a holiday occupation for a bishop of this century,-he never stepped down out of the aristocratic class to which he belonged, his courtesy was of the condescending sort; he died, 'full of days, riches, and honour,' and, his biographer adds, 'at the close of a religious and well-spent life,' marked by benevolence, hospitality, and charity, and so full of piety that he gave more than three hours of every day to prayer, meditation, and devotional reading. Such a mode of life may not fit in with a bishop's duty in these days; but the example of a religious life is not wasted. Horsley of St. Asaph (1733-1806) and Pretyman (Tomline) of Lincoln and Winchester (17501827) may also be mentioned as bishops who, besides their literary fame, did more in their dioceses than their order and the standard of their time required of them. Horsley, indeed, stood at the head of all the bishops of his generation. It was no scandal a hundred years ago, though it was beginning to be thought undesirable, for a clergyman to hold three or four livings at once; and it was not considered indispensable that he should supply a curate where he did not reside. A benefice was, in sentiment, as in law, a freehold, and it was no more questionable to hold benefices than to own estates in more places than one. Promotion implied patronage, and it was taken for granted that in dispensing patronage family claims came first. Bishop Sparke of Ely, his son, and son-in-law, are said to have received among them more than £30,000 a year of church money. Archbishop Moore is reputed to have died worth a million; his elder son had £12,000 a year of church preferment, his younger £3000. Archbishop Manners Sutton, 'a mild but rapacious prelate,' presented seven of his relations to sixteen benefices, besides cathedral dignities. Bishop Tomline also did well for his family. Dr. Goodall, Provost of Eton, who died in 1840, was Canon of Windsor and Rector of West Ilsley, a chapter living. And these were virtuous men, of high and well-deserved reputation. It was said that a third part of the clergy were pluralists, and therefore non-residents. We hear of a clergyman with two livings, worth in all £1200 |