The same spirit which made them diligent and indefatigable in building village churches, made them also enterprising and zealous in building cathedrals. They knew that energetic life in a large body requires manifold members, and a diversity of structure,that the type of strength is not to be found in the uniform mass of the whale, but in the infinitely diversified organization of the human frame. This was the principle which they followed in their Statebuilding and this was the principle which they followed in their Churchbuilding also,-aisle within aisle, pier beyond pier, an ever-varying maze of pillars, nave, transepts, choir. Whereas nowadays we have almost lost the faculty not merely of erecting, but even of comprehending such edifices. We marvel and are shockt at the labour, at the money, at the materials wasted upon them. We are shockt that all these things should be withdrawn from the service of self and of this fair delightful world, to the service of that which stimulates no sense, which pampers no appetite, which flatters no passion. If we hear of a banquet which costs thousands of pounds, we admire such an example of splendid munificence: if we hear of the same sum expended on the enlargement or decoration of a church, we cry out against such unmeaning silly prodigality. We marvel at our cathedrals, because they were the work of faith, because their very conception implies a lively and reverent and stedfast assurance of Him who was to be worshipt in them, and a trust that what was begun in this assurance would in like manner be carried on by after ages. We marvel, because we ourselves cannot work either by faith or upon faith, because we cannot bring ourselves to work for any other than an immediate, calculable, practical end, and because, working thus for ourselves and for our own generation solely, we cannot rely on coming generations to continue and finish our work. Indeed there doubtless are many persons, who, if shame did not withhold them, would pull down our cathedrals altogether, and that too, as they would fancy, out of pure love to the Church. For look you! can we not build two or three, or half a dozen churches out of each? ay, a dozen out of some? Are there no materials then to be dug any longer out of the quarries of the earth? or must all her huge bones be employed

in making macadamized pavements? Is there no longer any gold in Ophir? no longer any cedars on Lebanon? Have Agriculture and the Arts and Commerce been suddenly blighted and stricken with barrenness, so that all their stores will not yield us any offering for God, but that we must perforce rob the temple, in order that we may have a gift to bring to the temple? Moreover in these things also there is a party who count it the only wisdom to seek out the juste milieu. He who has ever been at Llandaff will understand the proceedings of these persons. He will have seen the outward walls of a large and beautiful cathedral: but he will also have seen with shame and sorrow and indignation, how the roof of the chief part has fallen in, and how the men of these latter days have been too feeble and inert and selfish to repair it, and how they have thrown up a wall at the end of the choir, deeming this the only useful part of the building. This seems to be the pattern after which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners framed their Bill. They resolved not to destroy the Cathedral Chapters, but to preserve what they conceived to be the only useful part of them, and to get rid of the remainder.

In dealing with ancient institutions, which seem to have lost their efficacy, there are two courses. The narrowminded, the men of mere practical understanding, without imagination to call up those manifold relations which lie beyond the span of the understanding, they who see one thing clearly and distinctly, and who straightway conclude that it is the only thing to be seen, who walk between two high walls, and suppose that the whole world is included between them,-they who have no reverence for antiquity, no faith in a higher spirit guiding and shaping the actions of men, and pervading their institutions, they who trust in their own wisdom and in their own will, and who desire to see that wisdom and that will reflected in everything around them,—will destroy the decayed institution as worthless, to set up some creation of their own in its stead. They on the other hand who have learnt to distrust their own wisdom, and to suspect their will,—who have discovered the limits of their faculties, and how narrow they are, who have perceived how far the largest part of what is valuable in

their minds is owing to the unnoticed influences of the thoughts and principles and institutions amid which they have grown up,they who have discerned that in nations also, and in other bodies corporate, there is a kind of instinct, whereby they seek and assimilate what is suitable and healthful, rejecting what is noxious,who have discerned that in nations also "the child is father of the man,” and that the only sure progress of national life lies in expansion and transfiguration, not in transmigration, -will always be anxious to preserve the institutions which their fathers have left them, not however in their worn out dilapidated state, but restored to completeness and vigour, with a new spirit of life kindled in them. In desiring to preserve the Cathedral Chapters, our wish was not to keep a number of rich sinecures in the Church, to infect it with the taint of Mammon. But we conceived, that, while it has long been matter of deep regret, that the bonds of unity and order in the Church have been so loosened as almost to be dissolved, the Chapters, if their offices were rightly distributed and administered, would afford the best means for connecting the whole Clergy of the Diocese by manifold links with the Episcopal See; that through them the Cathedral might, as it were, stretch out her arms through the Diocese, embracing every part of it; and moreover that there are divers functions of the Church, some of which are specified in the Petition, while the need of others will be suggested as our activity increases and widens its field, which could in no way be discharged so easily and beneficially as by members of the Cathedral Chapters. This has not been the case hitherto, we grant. But nothing has been as it ought to have been, and perhaps least of all in the Church, for many generations. Nevertheless we hoped that what had not been might be, finding encouragement to hope this in the improvements which have already taken place in divers things: and still we dare hope that this may be so. For, thanks to our noble defenders in the House of Lords! the Chapters have not been cut down, according to the niggardly measure which had been deemed to befit the Queen of nations in the fulness of her riches and her power. Not a single Stall has been destroyed. The revenues have merely been taken away;

a punishment which we perhaps deserved. We deserved it, on account of the worldlymindedness, which has too long been allowed to exercise a baneful influence in our Church. We deserved it, on account of the base spirit in which certain persons, calling themselves our champions, advocated our cause. We deserved it, because we did not with one voice reject and cast out those selfconstituted champions who disgraced us. We deserved it, because too many of our body suffered themselves to be deluded by the miserable cant of the world, and by the hollow notions of a false empirical philosophy, into declaring that the Stalls were needful as prizes to stimulate our activity in our parochial ministrations; as if they who were regardless of the many high motives which ought to animate us, -the love of God and of Christ, care for the souls of our brethren, the promptings of duty, the stirrings of conscience, the joy found in peace of heart,—and those better among earthly motives, the interest which the healthyminded take in their work, and the wish to gain the esteem and affection of our neighbours, as if they who were reckless of such high and puissant motives, could be roused to diligent exertions by the dim problematical hope of a Stall in a Cathedral! or as if exertions springing from such a source could effect any real good! as if this were the way in which the Church is to strengthen herself by the Mammon of unrighteousness, by binding him to the altar of God, as the only lure that can draw men to come and worship before it! Yet many of us did unthinkingly utter this slander against themselves and their brethren. Even truly pious and zealous men did so, without reflecting that nothing like the hope of such an earthly reward had ever occurred to themselves among the incitements to the discharge of their duty. In truth, when we call to mind how the Cathedral dignities were generally distributed during the last century, we may at least derive this comfortable assurance from the retrospect, that there could scarcely have been a vainer, more groundless expectation, than that of earning such an honour by diligence in the parochial ministry.

Hence, by reason of these various infirmities and errours, we

have justly incurred the punishment, that a large part of the revenues of our Cathedrals should be wrested from them. But why do I call it a punishment? Because it is so regarded by the world, and as such brings shame upon us: because it is a sign of our demerit, in that, if our Cathedral bodies had been fulfilling their vocation worthily during these latter years, no plan of reducing them would ever have been entertained: because it would have been right and expedient that such diocesan offices as the aforementioned, which are incompatible with the charge of a parish, should be salaried by the revenues of a stall: in fine because whatever is subtracted from what has been termed the Nationalty, and whatever checks its legitimate increase, is a national detriment, as lessening that part of the national income, of which a far larger portion than of any other is spent in beneficent and godly works. Yet, if this punishment, such as it is, tends in any degree to withdraw our hearts from the dross of this world, and to give us a clearer insight into the spiritual nature of our office and powers, we may well be heartily thankful for it. And so does it behove us to give thanks that the Canonries have been preserved, although their revenues have been taken from them. In this Diocese more especially

should we be thankful that the chief prayer of our Petition has been granted. For this was our Petition, "that all the Stalls might be maintained, with whatsoever revenue or emolument." This was the Petition sent up by the Archdeaconry of Chichester, "that all the Stalls might be maintained, even without revenue or emolument." This was the object so strongly urged in Mr Manning's noble Letter On the Preservation of Unendowed Canonries. This too was the special object on which our beloved Bishop had set his heart, and for the attainment of which his life was in a manner sacrificed. For it is certain, I believe, that the illness which closed his earthly life was caused by his anxiety about the Ecclesiastical Bill. And so too have I been informed on good authority, that, though the coming on of his last illness prevented his being present at the discussion in the Committee of the House of Lords, yet his zealous exhortations were mainly instrumental in prevail