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people, should it ever cease to be eminently useful. It will cease to be useful when its clergy cease to be respected; and although it be true that a certain degree of respect will always be yielded to honest intentions and a holy life, yet since we are to be preachers and teachers, as well as doers of the Word, we must not, in that capacity, *suffer any to despise us,' nor permit the cause of truth to be wounded through the sides of its incompetent defenders. "We are therefore not only authorized, but in my opinion required—authorized by the abundant supply of candidates, and required by the exigencies of the Church,to look for a more systematic and laborious preparation for the ministry; and to expect that clerical accomplishments shall be raised with the universally rising qualifieations of every other profession. We have perhaps some reason for wishing that our Universities should do more than, even with the recent improvements in their system, they have hitherto done, towards effecting this desirable result. For my own part, I entertain a very strong opinion as to the necessity of one or more theological seminaries, in which, besides going through a prescribed course of study for one or two years, the candidates for holy orders might be exercised in reading the Liturgy of our Church, and in the composition and delivery of sermons. The establishment of these, which need not interfere with the accustomed course of academical study, must necessarily be a work of difficulty, requiring much consideration and forethought. In the mean time we have it in our power, by exercising a stricter scrutiny, to secure a certain degree of competency in our candidates; and I have sincere pleasure in bearing the testimony of my own experience to the fact, that the standard of ministerial acquirements has already been greatly raised, without any diminution in the number of applicants for admission into the ministry, and with the most obvious and striking benefit to the Church itself."

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The requirements which, upon these grounds, the Bishop proposed to make upon all candidates for Holy Orders were -a familiarity with the historical and prophetical parts of the Old Testament,-that general theological knowledge without which neither the evidences of Revealed Religion, nor the scriptural orthodoxy of our Church can be rightly understood, much less proved to others,-ability to render plain and easy English into correct grammatical Latin,-and acquaintance with the whole of the New Testament in the original language, except, perhaps, the Revelation.

In answer to the objection that by this raised standard of attainments some persons would be excluded from the ministry whose faculties are less vigorous and active than those of others, the Bishop expressed his opinion "that if a young man, with all the advantages of a good education, and knowing himself to be destined to this sacred and arduous calling, is unable to write Latin correctly, and to construe the Greek Testament, at the age of three and twenty, he is either greatly deficient in diligence and seriousness, or he is not qualified by natural endowments for the office of an expositor of God's Word. And ‘if some parents,'" the Bishop continued, “to use the words of Bishop Sanderson, 'must needs have their children thrust into the ministry, though they have neither a head nor a heart for it,' we tell them that our duty, and the interests of the Church of Christ, and the cause of men's salvation, will not permit us to second their mistaken design; that their sons are not rightly called' to the ministry; it being certain that God never calleth any man but to that for which He hath in some competent measure enabled him.' Let them seek for some other profession, in which their incapacity may injure themselves alone; and not intrude into a calling which will render their ignorance infectious, and make the little light that is in them to be gross darkness which may be felt."

CHAPTER VII.

Revolution in France-Its Influence upon English Politics-The "Sovereignty of the People "-The Duke of Wellington's Declaration against Parliamentary Reform-Reform Ministry-Reform Bill of 1831-Coronation of King William and Queen AdelaideThe Coronation Sermon-Scriptural Principles and the British Constitution-Warnings against a Godless Policy-Blessings of National Religion-Admonition to the Monarch-Views of Bishop Blomfield on the Reform Question-Embarrassing Attitude of the Episcopate-Illness and Death of Mr. Charles Blomfield-The Reform Bill in the House of Lords-Unjust Imputations on Bishop Blomfield-His Apology for the Episcopate-Unpopularity of the Bishops-Bishop Blomfield and the Parishioners of St. Ann's, Soho-Temper of the Popular Mind-The Bristol Riots-Proposed Creation of Peers-The Reform Bill of 1832Bishop Blomfield's Explanation of his Conduct-Resentment of the Tory Peers-The Duke of Newcastle and the Principle of Expediency.

W

HILE Bishop Blomfield was thus engaged in preparing the way for an efficient administration of the affairs of his diocese, with a view to render the Church, as far as in him lay, better able to cope with the spirit of the age, with the exigencies of the times, and with the difficulties of her position, an event was approaching which, though extraneous not only to the Church, but to this country, had an immense influence upon the destinies of both. In the last days of the month which the Bishop had devoted to his visitation, the King of France was, by a sudden popular explosion, despoiled of his crown and driven into exile; and in his place a Revolution-king

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was set up on a "throne" established on republican foundations. This event,―happening at a moment when the popular demand for an enlargement of the representative basis of the Constitution, raised a short time before at the instigation of designing political leaders, had received fresh strength from the general impression that the Monarch who had just ascended the British throne was favourable to the cause of Parliamentary Reform,— greatly added to the excitement naturally incident, at such a crisis, to a general election. The intelligence of the political convulsion on the other side of the channel arrived within a few days after the dissolution of the Parliament which was sitting at the time of the demise of the Crown, and which had been kept together only for the completion of the necessary routine business of the session. The general election, therefore, took place under the twofold excitement produced, on the one hand, by the promise of a Reform Bill which was to prove a panacea for all the ills the body politic is heir to, and on the other hand by the startling example of the overthrow of a reactionary Government and dynasty, whose title was the "divine right" of kings, and the substitution in its place of a government and dynasty based upon the principle of the "sovereignty of the people" as the sole fountain of political power. The Parliament elected under these inauspicious circumstances met at the beginning of November, and had not been assembled a fortnight when the ill-advised declaration of the Duke of Wellington against all reform raised the fever of popular ferment to a pitch of exasperation which at one time seriously threatened the Monarchy. The intended visit of the. King to the City on the first Lord Mayor's day after his accession, had to be abandoned through fear of personal insult and outrage to the King and his Royal Consort; and in a few days after, the Duke and his Cabinet took the opportunity of a defeat in the House of Commons upon a

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question connected with the Civil List, to retire before the coming tempest. Their resignation led the way to Earl Grey's Premiership, brought Mr. Henry Brougham upon the wool-sack, and made room in the House of Commons for Lord John Russell, as the Ministerial champion of Parliamentary Reform. A general programme of the proposed policy of the new Ministry was followed by the adjournment of the two Houses; and when they met again early in the year 1831, a Reform Bill was introduced into the Lower House of Parliament as a ministerial measure. But although successful in the first instance, the Ministry suffered towards the end of April a defeat in its progress, which was followed by a dissolution and another appeal to the country, not without a vigorous resistance on the part of the King, who was literally coerced into the act by his overbearing "servants." The general election which ensued was, as might be expected under such circumstances, more tumultuous than the preceding one; and when the new Parliament met, in June, 1831, it was beyond all doubt certain that the Reform Bill to be proposed to it by the Government would be carried triumphantly in the Lower House; while it was equally well understood that a decided majority of the Upper House was resolved to throw it out, and that the King himself, alarmed by the violence with which the popular demands were urged, was averse to the large measure of concession contemplated by his Ministers. was during the progress of the debates on this Bill through the House of Commons that, on the 8th of September, 1831, the Coronation of King William and Queen Adelaide took place in Westminster Abbey; and on Bishop Blomfield devolved the difficult task of preaching the Coronation Sermon at a moment when the Monarchy and the democracy were confronting each other in an attitude of menace unparallelled in this country since the day when the Martyr King unfurled the Royal Standard in opposition

It