their charge. As far as he was concerned, | well attended, and he believed that would however, he only interested himself about always be the case where the parishes were the City of London, and he said, so far sufficiently large, and where the clergy did from this being an iconoclastic proposal, it their duty; but, however able or active a was eminently a church extension measure, clergyman might be, he could not have a full and one to be applied for the benefit of the congregation of his own parishioners where Church. If, from other sources, they could there were not parishioners to form a conobtain the means of building new churches gregation. He said, then, that by aswhere they were wanted, it might perhaps senting to this measure they would consult be objected that they were about to interfere the best interests of the Church, violate no unnecessarily with consecrated edifices; sacred principle, greatly strengthen the but even if they could otherwise obtain Established Church, and encourage the the needful means for building the new building of new churches. He would churches, he was not disposed to deny allude to another objection against the that it might not be better in some cases measure. It had been asked whether it to unite the smaller parishes, and introduce was likely that persons would contribute to a more extended and active ministry into the building of new churches when it was the City of London. A great portion of possible that, after the lapse of some years, the population of the City had of late such churches might be pulled down, and years migrated to the suburbs, and he was the ground upon which they were erected of opinion that those persons who were might be sold for secular purposes. He now called on to pay tithes in the City of (the Bishop of London) was not afraid that London, and who were reaping the benefits the churches which benevolent individuals of the enlarged commerce of that great would be likely to build would be erected emporium, ought not to complain if part of in places where it was possible that their the present stipends were applied for the demolition should happen in any foreseen spiritual advantage of their work people, period of time. If such persons built who mostly lived in districts beyond the churches, they would build them in polimits of the City. It had been stated, on pulous districts where more were wanted a former occasion, by a noble Friend of than already existed; and to talk of their his, that there was a sufficient number of apprehending that the edifices would be poor in the metropolis to fill the churches, pulled down unless the locality was turned and that the reason the poor were so sel- into a desert and the population migrated, dom seen in them was that the City was really to conjure up a phantom to churches were filled with large square paralyse the efforts of those who would pews, which were locked up, so that the otherwise contribute to a good work. poor could not enter them. He could state had not the slightest apprehension that that that was really not the case. He had this measure would discourage church made inquiries, and had received reports building. The spirit of church building from numerous parishes, that there were had happily been excited throughout the no pews locked up, and that there was no country, and had manifested itself in nudifficulty in obtaining access to them; that merous instances, not only in his own dioseats were provided for the poorer inhabi- cese, but in the manufacturing districts. tants of the parishes more than sufficient It might be gratifying to their Lordto accommodate the whole number of poor ships to know that he himself had resident there. The people who attended been instrumental in building eighty-three church resident in the City of London churches in the metropolis, twelve of were very few. The merchants, bankers, which had been erected entirely at the cost and great traders went away every Satur- of private individuals. He hoped, if his day, and returned on Monday to business. life were spared a few years longer, to They had few or no domestic servants in complete at least his century of metropothe City, and their employés lived at a litan churches; and he was persuaded distance; the only persons left upon their their Lordships would render him most premises were porters, who had charge of important facilities in accomplishing that the warehouses and shops, and who could object by assenting to the present Bill. not, if they would, be constant attendants at church. It was for this reason that so few worshippers were to be found in many of the City churches on Sunday. True, certain of the City churches were pretty VOL. CXXXIII. [THIRD SERIES.]

He

THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN concurred with the right rev. Prelate who had just sat down, that great spiritual destitution might be occasioned by the maintenance of numerous inefficiently endowed churches.

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The condition of the city of Lincoln, in break down the law, which had worked this respect, closely resembled that of the satisfactorily for fourteen years in the preCity of London. Lincoln contained 17,000 vention of pluralism, but to adopt the inhabitants and had thirteen small churches, Amendment of his noble Friend, and limit the largest of which afforded sittings to the operation of this measure to the cities 600 persons; and the clerical income of of London and Westminster, and those few the thirteen incumbents was 1,380l. a towns and cities where it might be expeyear, or an average of something more dient. If there were places to which the than 1007. each. Those among their provision was applicable, there could be no Lordships who were acquainted with small difficulty in naming them in a schedule. parishes would know under what very The fact was, this was one of those meagreat disadvantages the worship of the sures that were framed for the metropolis Church must be carried on in these cir- and its vicinity, and then extended over cumstances. He conceived that a great the whole of England without sufficient innumber of small churches that were ill quiry as to its general applicability. The endowed weakened the efficiency of the causes of the falling off in the congregaChurch's ministration, while there were tions were often pluralities and the system other overgrown and populous districts of pew-rents; but this Bill called on them suffering under great spiritual destitution. to undo the work of the last fifty years in At the same time it was obvious that few regard to church extension. They ought of the clergy would be parties to the to take care that in their endeavour to obpulling down of superfluous churches, tain a competency for the clergy by uniteven to provide church accommodation ing several livings, they did not destroy elsewhere where it was most wanted, all stimulus to individual exertion, and unless it was done under the conviction check those efforts of private munificence that it would enable them to remedy in church building which the noble Earl at greater evils; and, of course, whenever the head of the Government had illustrated it was done, it should take place under on the previous evening. sufficiently stringent safeguards. It might, perhaps, be questionable whether the checks contained in this Bill were sufficiently stringent, but he thought it most desirable that the operation of the measure should be extended to the few places where interference was necessary. The right rev. Prelate below him (the Bishop of Oxford) had suggested that the experiment should be tried in the City of London before the measure was applied to provincial cities and towns. It had been said, "Fiat experimentum in corpore vili;" but the right rev. Prelate would first try the effects of the Bill upon millions, and afterwards upon the less populated districts; but surely if the experiment was allowable in the metropolis, it was allowable in the few other cases in which it could be adopted. It must be remembered that the provisions of the Bill could not be carried out immediately, for lives must drop in, and other contingencies must occur before parishes and endowments could be united.

THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER addressed a few words to their Lordships which were inaudible.

THE EARL OF POWIS said, that this proposition was not a new experiment to render the Church more elastic, but a retrogression to the system of plurality prevalent in former days. They ought not to The Bishop of Lincoln

THE BISHOP OF LONDON hoped he had not been misunderstood in what he had said respecting the observations of his right rev. Friend (the Bishop of Oxford) as to the different modes of performing divine service in the Church of England. He had not meant to represent his right rev. Friend as having said that he approved that difference; but what his right rev. Friend had said was, that the taste of persons as to the performance of religious worship varied materially, and that the Church of England allowed considerable latitude with respect to the celebration of divine service. His right rev. Friend meant merely to suggest that fair scope should be allowed for a legitimate diversity, and not that that diversity should be carried to an extravagant length.

EARL FITZWILLIAM said, he considered that their Lordships would act wisely in adopting the Amendment of the noble Earl. He was the more disposed to take that course from what had fallen from a right rev. Bishop (the Bishop of Lincoln), whose addition to the Bench every one in the House must rejoice at, but in whose views he confessed, on the present occasion, he could not concur. That right rev. Prelate had told their Lordships that in the city of Lincoln there was a population of 17,000, and for those 17,000 there were

thirteen churches. He was not quite sure whether the right rev. Prelate had stated it in his speech, but he understood that he looked to a considerable decrease in the number of churches. Unless, however, it could be shown that those churches were so circumstanced as to be ineffective, he did not see that it was desirable to dimi-and that he thought it would be exceednish their number. Considering that, if fairly apportioned, there would be 1,200 or 1,300 persons to each church, he must be allowed to doubt whether there was at Lincoln a superabundance of church accommodation. He apprehended that no one would dispute that the City of London would derive great benefit from this Bill; but he did not think it was equally clear that it would be as beneficial to other towns. As it was the intention to trust the provisions of this Bill to the management of the respective diocesans, with the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, he must entertain a doubt whether it would not be better for Parliament to keep the control in its own hands, and inquire into each particular case according as the necessity arose. He was the more inclined to adopt that opinion from what had fallen from the right rev. the Bishop of Oxford, who seemed to think that diversity in the service of the churches was a very desirable thing, and that separate services should be kept up. Now, though he (Earl Fitzwilliam) was a liberal Churchman, he was not prepared to go that length. He should support the Amendment of the noble Earl.

in the administration of the same service; that, in the rubric, for instance, she laid down a certain portion of the service to be said or sung; that one congregation greatly preferred, and thought it increased their devotion, to have it sung; that another congregation preferred to have it read;

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ingly unwise in any person-whether the clergyman of the parish, the bishop of the diocese, or other individual-to attempt, in those matters which the Church had left free, to obtrude on a religious congregation a mode of service which it disliked. His noble Friend on the cross-benches (Earl Fitzwilliam) said that he was a liberal Churchman; and he (the Bishop of Oxford) ventured to claim for himself, that if in this respect he differed from the noble Earl, it was in being a still more liberal Churchman. In matters indifferent it was his maxim to advise his clergy to endeavour to ascertain the way in which the people wished to have the service performed within the limits allowed by the Church of England, to act with them, and not to violate their opinions. That was his view of this matter, and he had never yet heard any arguments which could induce him to change his opinion. It was because he believed that the doing away with churches would have a tendency to violate these opinions, that he had used the arguments he had offered. To remove a person who had been accustomed to a small church with a quiet service, and that quietness of preaching that commonly belonged THE BISHOP OF OXFORD said, he to it, to a populous church, with a large thought that, as a portion of the re- congregation and all the adjuncts of music, marks he had made had been misrepresented, both by his right rev. Friend (the Bishop of London) and by the noble Earl who had just sat down, it was necessary that he should offer some explanation. His right rev. Friend, with his usual candour, had acknowledged that in the heat of ar- THE EARL OF HARROWBY thought gument he had made a misrepresentation the question involved by the Amendment in some degree of what had fallen from was, whether they would confine the remedy him (the Bishop of Oxford), but as, not- to one place. His noble Friend on the withstanding the explanation of his right cross-benches said he should not like to rev. Friend, that misrepresentation had trust the Bishops with the measure; but, been echoed by the noble Earl, the House in his opinion, the Bishops were far more would allow him to state what he did and likely to carry it out in a what he did not say. He did not say he tive spirit than otherwise. He was afraid desired to see separate services in every that, if they were to carry out this principle el.urch, or anything like it; but he said, and of consulting the tastes of individuals, they he repeated it, that the taste of men affect- would have to have several services a day ed them with respect to religious worship in each church. In reply to the argument as well as in other things; that the Church that the operation of this Act ought at of England allowed a considerable diversity first to be confined to the cities of London

and a particular style of preaching, was, to him, a serious and real evil; and it was because he desired the utmost liberty within the limits of the Church of England, that he always ventured to use the argument.

conserva

AGRICULTURAL LECTURES (IRELAND) give a more mature consideration to that