be prevented, it is not certain that the preservation of capitular bodies in their full integrity is more desirable than the partial direction of their funds into other channels. The population of England has greatly overgrown, in certain districts, the parochial provision anciently made for its religious wants. Chapter property affords means of remedying this evil to a considerable extent; for that purpose, therefore, such a portion of it may reasonably be asked, as would neither sacrifice the country's magnificent cathedrals, nor the sublime ministrations performed in them, nor all the facilities for encouraging and rewarding clerical exertions, which their endowments supply. These objects are contemplated by the act of 1840. It provides for the reduction of canonries to the number of four in each cathedral, unless there are special circumstances requiring a larger number, and the future severance of all endowment from nonresidentiary dignities. The mass of property set at liberty by this arrangement is to be vested in a board of commissioners, by whom it is to be applied to relieve the spiritual necessities of the country at large. From this disposition great advantages undoubtedly will flow to the people of England. Perhaps nothing is to be lamented in the plan but its approach to the stipendiary system. Certain dignitaries are to pay away such portions of their revenues as will reduce their incomes to a particular amount; others are to be placed upon one uniform scale of receipts. In all these cases the scale adopted seems unexceptionable, but a reasonable partiality for arrangements that have stood the test of long experience, and an allowable distrust of a principle inviting results injurious to the clergy, may raise a hope that ultimately arrangements will be made for the transfer of estates from dignities that will bear curtailment to such as need augmentation.

§ 20. There are few subjects upon which a religious Englishman can think with less pleasure than upon the slight attention long paid by his country to the spiritual wants of her colonies. When Romish governments plant any considerable number of their people upon some distant shore, they have rarely omitted to establish an episcopal see among them within a very short period. The English government long rooted valuable and extensive colonies in almost every quarter of the

globe, without making any religious provision for them beyond the supply of a few unconnected and unsupported clergymen. The first individual of weight and influence who successfully drew attention to this discreditable and impolitic omission, was the late high-minded and religious bishop Barrington. In 1786 he offered to the notice of Mr. Pitt's administration, a valuable and judicious paper, entitled Thoughts on the Establishment of the Church of England in Nova Scotia. In this he recommended the appointment of a bishop, a provision for the established clergy, and a seminary for clerical education. All these recommendations were eventually adopted, and in 1787 a bishop was appointed to the see of Nova Scotia, being the first colonial bishop that the church of England ever commissioned: the second was one for Canada. For England's enormous Indian empire, no episcopal provision was made when the eighteenth century closed: a few chaplains, appointed by the East India Company, were the only symptoms of any care for the spiritual interests of those numerous natives of the British isles who sought subsistence or advancement in Hindostan, and of whom a large proportion never returned to enjoy again the religious privileges of their mother-country. There were, indeed, occasionally heard animadversions upon the imperfect and niggardly provision made for the eternal welfare of so many expatriated christians, and occasionally the appointment of a bishop was recommended. But this latter was usually represented as a project which could not be entertained by any discreet person anxious to preserve the British power. The native population was thought likely to take instant alarm, if it saw a prelate land, being nearly certain to consider him as the harbinger of some forced conversion. In such apprehensions, however, the more discerning and strenuous friends of episcopacy did not participate. When, accordingly, a renewal of the East India Company's charter came under parliamentary discussion in 1813, the project of establishing a bishopric in the Peninsula was actively canvassed, and gained largely upon the public approval. Parliament was, however, cautious in sanctioning the plan. It was not until extensive inquiries were made, and

Harford's Life of Bp. Burgess, Lond. 1840, p. 394.

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 Ibil. p. 506.