Part 28 (1/2)

Moreover, England, unlike her next-door neighbour, improved as the years rolled on. A gradual but distinct alteration for the better may be traced in the later part of the century. Many causes contributed to effect this. After the accession of George III. a growing sense of security began to pervade the country. An unsettled state is always prejudicial to national morals, and there were henceforward no serious thoughts of deranging the established order of things. Influences, too, were at work which tended to raise the tone of morality and religion in all orders of society. The upper cla.s.ses had a good example set them by the blameless lives of the King and the Queen. In the present day, when it is the fas.h.i.+on to ridicule the foibles and to condemn the troublesome interference in State affairs of the well-meaning but often ill judging King, it is the more necessary to bear in mind the debt of grat.i.tude which the nation owed him for the good effects which his personal character unquestionably produced--effects which, though they told more directly and immediately upon the upper cla.s.ses, yet permeated more or less through all the strata of society. Among the middle cla.s.ses, too, there arose a set of men whose influence for good it would be difficult to exaggerate. Foremost among them stands the great and good Dr.

Johnson. 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Lord Mahon, 'stemmed the tide of infidelity.' And the greatest of modern satirists does not state the case too strongly when he declares that 'Johnson had the ear of the nation. His immense authority reconciled it to loyalty and shamed it out of irreligion. He was revered as a sort of oracle, and the oracle declared for Church and King. He was a fierce foe to all sin, but a gentle enemy to all sinners.'[707] Sir J. Reynolds, and E. Burke, and Hogarth, and Pitt, each in his way, helped on the good work. The rising Evangelical school--the Newtons, the Venns, the Cecils, the Romaines, among the clergy, and the Wilberforces, the Thorntons, the Mores, the Cowpers, among the laity--all affected beneficially to an immense extent the upper and middle cla.s.ses, while among the lower cla.s.ses the Methodist movement was effecting incalculable good. These latter influences, however, were far too important an element in the national amelioration to be dealt with at the end of a chapter. Suffice it here to add that, glaring as were the abuses of the Church of the eighteenth century, they could not and did not destroy her undying vitality. Even when she reached her nadir there was sufficient salt left to preserve the ma.s.s from becoming utterly corrupt. The fire had burnt low, but there was yet enough light and heat left to be fanned into a flame which was in due time to illumine the nation and the nation's Church.

J.H.O.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 648: In 1705, 1706, 1710, 1711, 1714, 1715, &c. &c., there were High Church mobs.]

[Footnote 649: c.o.xe's _Memoirs of Sir S. Walpole_, vol. i. pp. 24, 25.]

[Footnote 650: A glaring instance of the blighting effects of the Walpole Ministry upon the Church is to be found in the treatment of Berkeley's attempt to found a university at Bermuda. See a full account of the whole transaction in Wilberforce's _History of the American Church_, ch. iv. pp. 151-160. Mr. Anderson calls it a 'national crime.'

See _History of the Colonial Church_, vol. iii. ch. xxix. p. 437, &c.

The Duke of Newcastle pursued the same policy. In spite of the efforts of the most influential Churchmen, such as Gibson, Sherlock, and Secker, who all concurred in recognising the need of clergymen, of churches, of schools, in our plantations, 'the ma.s.s of inert resistance presented in the office of the Secretary of State, responsible for the colonies, was too great to be overcome.'--Ibid. p. 443.]

[Footnote 651: Bishop Fitzgerald (_Aids to Faith_, Essay ii. -- 7) stigmatises the impotency and turbulence of Convocation, but entirely ignores the practical agenda referred to above. See Cardwell's _Synodalia_, on the period.]

[Footnote 652: See the introduction to Palin's _History of the Church of England from the Revolution to the Last Acts of Convocation_.]

[Footnote 653: See Cardwell's _Synodalia_, xlii.]

[Footnote 654: Hodgson's 'Life of Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London,' in vol. i. of Porteus's _Works_, p. 45. Another thoroughly good man, Bishop Gibson, was, before he was mitred, Precentor and Residentiary of Chichester, Rector of Lambeth, and Archdeacon of Surrey. See c.o.xe's _Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole_, i. 478.]

[Footnote 655: _Anecdotes of the Life of R. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff_, published by his Son, vol. i. p. 307.]

[Footnote 656: Id. ii. 349.]

[Footnote 657: Paley's 'Charges,' vol. vii of his _Works_, in 7 vols.]

[Footnote 658: 'Charge of the Bishop of Rochester,' 1796, Bishop Horsley's _Charges_.]

[Footnote 659: Bishop of Oxford's Second Charge, 1741, Secker's _Charges_.]

[Footnote 660: Remarks on a _Discourse of Freethinking, by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis_, xl. (edition of 1743).]

[Footnote 661: _Anecdotes of the Life of R. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff_, i. 159.]

[Footnote 662: Quoted in Kilvert's _Life of Bishop Hurd_, p. 97. Dean Swift, in his _Project for the Advancement of Religion_, speaks of curates in the most contemptuous terms. 'In London, a clergyman, _with one or two sorry curates_, has sometimes the care of above 20,000 souls inc.u.mbent on him.']

[Footnote 663: How n.o.bly and successfully a domestic chaplain in a great family might do his duty in the eighteenth century; the conduct of Thomas Wilson, when he was domestic chaplain to the Earl of Derby, and tutor to his son, is an instance.]

[Footnote 664: Bishop of Oxford's _Charge_, 1738.]

[Footnote 665: Secker's _Instructions given to Candidates for Orders_.]

[Footnote 666: Mr. Pattison's Essay in _Essays and Reviews_.]

[Footnote 667: _Lives of the Chancellors_, by Lord Campbell, vol. v.

chap. x.x.xviii. p. 186.]