the safety of the proposed measure fully established by sufficient evidence, that legislative authority was given for the foundation of an Indian see. These preliminaries having been terminated satisfactorily, when the East India Company's charter was renewed in 1814, a warm discussion in the House of Commons ended in the passing of resolutions for the appointment of a bishop, and of three archdeacons. The prelate appointed was Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, known as the learned author of The Doctrine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New Testament, and as an exemplary, energetic clergyman. Even after this appointment, so dubious were many upon the policy of sending a bishop to India, that the archbishop of Canterbury forbore to pay the customary compliment of desiring the consecration sermon to be published, for fear of causing any needless excitement in the public mind. All these alarms proved wholly unfounded: but they were suffered to cast a shadow even over the new bishop's arrival in his diocese. He landed with no more notice from the constituted authorities than if he had come over to fill some inferior station. Eventually all such indecent folly was abandoned, and it was found that native respect for Britain was increased by seeing her at last place her religion upon a becoming and efficient footing. Bishop Middleton's vast diocese proved, however, too much for his physical powers, although these were apparently above the average, and he died suddenly, July 5, 1822. His successor also, the amiable Reginald Heber, conspicuous alike for poetic talent, moral worth, and religious feeling, soon sank under the fatigues and anxieties of a cure so much above the ordinary strength of man. Nor was a third prelate found more equal to such a task. He, too, fell an early victim to labours which an European might find excessive in the temperate region of his birth, but can scarcely hope to bear under an Indian sun. This truth, at length, was duly felt, and the fourth Indian bishop has been relieved from a large portion of that weighty charge which overwhelmed his predecessors. He is bishop of Calcutta and metropolitan. The two other presidencies of Madras and Bombay has now each a bishop of its own. In the West Indies two bishops were appointed in the year 1824; one being seated in Jamaica,

the other in Barbados; and in 1836 a bishop was appointed for Australia. Thus England has relieved herself, in almost every quarter of the globe, from the disadvantage and discredit of possessing important colonies without making any suitable provision for their spiritual wants.

§ 21. Among the religious movements of latter years, few have been conceived with sounder wisdom, and executed with greater liberality, than the provision of new seminaries for academical instruction. The lead was taken in remedying national deficiencies of this kind, by the late amiable, pious, and learned bishop Burgess. Having been most deservedly promoted to the see of St. David's, in 1803, he soon became shocked and surprised at the prevalence of dissent in his diocese. This evil he considered as partly owing to clerical inefficiency, and that evil again to the difficulty of commanding a university education with persons bred in comparative poverty, and likely to live in it. Young men were commonly presented for ordination who had only spent one year previously at the seminary from which they were expected to appear before the bishop'. Up to this brief beginning of their higher studies, they had usually been employed in the ordinary labours of their paternal farms. As a preliminary measure towards a succession better qualified for their profession, bishop Burgess licensed four schools for the education of candidates for holy orders, and required an attendance of seven years upon one of them. Still, these places of instruction could not possess the character and advantages of an institution exclusively meant for intellectual training of a higher grade. Such, therefore, it became the bishop's earnest endeavour to provide. For this object he regularly set apart a tenth of his episcopal revenue, and he prevailed upon his clergy, straitened as they generally were in circumstances, to do the same with their several benefices. By these sacrifices, so truly noble when the general condition of those who made them is considered, several thousand pounds were raised after a perseverance of eighteen years. The fund thus raised was augmented by lay subscriptions within the principality, and by liberal donations from England, one of a

Harford's Bp. Burgess, p. 225.

thousand pounds coming from George the Fourth. By these various means a college was founded at Lampeter, in Cardiganshire, on the site of an ancient castle, which had wholly disappeared. It was a most inviting spot, healthy in itself, and looking down upon a beautifully watered vale, shut in by lofty hills. Here was laid the first stone of the new building in 1822, and the erection was completed in 1827. The institution is now in full activity, and although without the privilege of conferring degrees, it can hardly fail of rendering permanently the most important benefits to the principality. The excellent prelate whose exertions called it into being was translated to the see of Salisbury in 1825, and he died possessed of that preferment in 1837. He did not, however, lose his interest in the college of Lampeter by removal from South Wales. To it he bequeathed his noble library, with a sum of money for providing the collection with a suitable apartment'. Since the Cardiganshire institution has been established, one of a similar kind, but more dignified and effective, has arisen at Durham. The distance of the northern counties from the two universities had long been felt as a considerable disadvantage, especially by young men intended for the church. In their case, indeed, it often led to that necessity for the admission of inferior clerical attainments, which acted so injuriously upon Wales. The expediency of founding a university at Durham had, accordingly, been frequently suggested, and a project of this kind was, much to Cromwell's honour, under his consideration. It slumbered, however, until the prelacy of the late bishop Van Mildert, one of the best divines and most publicspirited men of his day, who, notwithstanding the deficiency of private fortune, would hardly be outdone in liberality by his wealthy predecessor, Barrington. The example of such a diocesan was not lost upon the opulent chapter of his cathedral. That body honourably determined upon sacrificing a considerable portion of its endowments to remove the academical deficiency, which had been an immemorial subject of complaint in northern England. By an act of parliament, obtained in 1832, it alienated property producing nearly 30007. a year, to found

1 Ibid. p. 506.

the contemplated university. That most beneficial institution, which confers degrees, and offers advantages of every kind analogous to those of Oxford and Cambridge, is seated in the ancient castle of Durham. This was immemorially a place of occasional residence for the prelates of that once princely see, and it was worthy of them. It is a commanding pile, proudly sharing with its venerable neighbour, the massive AngloNorman cathedral, the crest of that unrivalled rock that shoots with woody sides above the Wear. Never did the ecclesiastical magnificence of former days find a happier field for its display, than at Durham, and hardly any where did it work with greater liberality and judgment. Thus England's tardy acquisition of a third university has not at length been made, without an ample share of those advantages for impressing youthful minds of taste and generous feeling, that recommend elder institutions in the south.

§ 22. In the United States of America great progress has been made by the protestant episcopal church during the nineteenth century, although it seems never to have numbered more than half a million of members. But these are among the wealthiest and most intelligent of the people. Hence their numbers are certain steadily to increase with the growing opulence and information of the country. In 1802 this interesting branch of the catholic church identified herself completely with her elder sister in the British isles, by adopting the Thirty-nine Articles. There was much debate before a step so decided was taken, but in the end it was thought advisable to accept the Anglican formulary exactly as it stood, leaving even its phraseology wholly untouched. But while the American church was daily enlarging her boundaries, it became obvious that she could not do herself justice without facilities of her own for academical instruction. Public attention was called to this matter in 1814, and in three years afterwards arrangements were made for establishing a theological seminary upon church principles at New York'. This institution has led the way for others of the same kind, and thus NorthAmerican churchmen will, at no great distance of time, be

2 Caswall's America and the American Church, p. 188.

sufficiently supplied with a competent ministry. It is obvious that their principles require this advantage before they can become extensively popular. In England, besides the higher orders, the church is generally followed by the poor: it is chiefly among the inferior sections of the middle classes that dissent flourishes. In America it would, probably, be found much the same, if there were a well-trained church clergy brought fully into contact with the population.

§ 23. The first forty years of the nineteenth century have exhibited Romanism under very striking changes of fortune. At the beginning of that period it was yet reeling under the assaults of the French revolution, and although then again adopted by the mighty nation that had, a few years before, so contumeliously shaken it off, its improved position long seemed of doubtful continuance. The restoration of the Bourbons, however, in 1814, confirmed by their second and better-secured restoration in the following year, was a solid advantage gained by the papal cause. Lewis XVIII., indeed, was no very slavish adherent to the church which had received so many services from his fathers, ever since the apostacy of Henry IV. But his protection of it was not like that of Napoleon, a mere matter of state policy. He patronised principles which he really held. His brother, Charles X., went far beyond him, and a policy essentially religious appeared again likely to prevail in the councils of France. But the prospect proved delusive, the revolution of July, 1830, driving the elder Bourbon branch from its ancestral throne, and undermining that sacerdotal influence which the deposed monarch had been anxious to extend. This influence, however, showed all its ancient strength immediately afterwards, in the neighbouring Belgic provinces. It had been thought advisable, on the dissolution of Buonaparte's power, to re-unite most of those territories in the Netherlands, which had formerly owned a common sovereignty in the house of Burgundy, and had descended from it to the Austrian family enthroned in Spain. An efficient counterpoise, it was thought, would be thus provided on her northern frontier against the ambition of France. To the house of Orange was confided the task of ruling over all the Low Countries, whether Dutch or Austrian. But that house was