§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Steward.)
LORD HOUGHTON, in moving an Amendment that the Bill be read a 5 second time this day six months, said, that the Bill appeared to be based on the principle of voluntary contributions towards the foundation of bishoprics in such places as contributors could be found to raise an endowment fund; but, at the same time, it interfered with the endowments of existing bishoprics. And, it was further to be borne in mind, that the Bishops were great officers of State. The Bill appeared to point to an indefinite extension of the Episcopate—yet, with one exception, the new bishoprics appeared to have been selected on no distinct principle, but rather on arbitrary and insufficient grounds. The one exception, in which the selection appeared to go on principle, was that of Liverpool. There was much to be said in favour of having one distinct Episcopal authority in such a locality. Their Lordships would remember how a very distinguished clergyman (Dr. Hook) had conducted the spiritual superintendence of the town of Leeds with a success that showed how much advantage might be derived from direct Episcopal superintendence over a large town. He was also old enough to remember the establishment of the bishopric of Manchester—he supported that step—and the results in the district assigned to its charge showed that the establishment of a bishopric in Liverpool could be defended on principle. He thought then, as he thought now, that the addition, under suitable circumstances, of distinguished clergymen to the Episcopal Bench could not but be attended with advantage to the country. As it had been at Manchester so, he thought, it would be with respect to the new bishopric of Liverpool, if he became a Member of their Lordships' House; but he took exception to the three other proposed new bishoprics. With respect to Newcastle, he disapproved the separation of that district from the large and important see of Durham. The people of the North had a pride and affection for the old see—there was no portion of England in which Episcopal remembrances and traditions were more cherished than in Durham. The inhabitants of Teeside spoke of the district as ''the Bishopric." As to Southwell, he believed that it would not have been selected only that there was a very fine church there now in progress of restoration. Repeating what he said last year, he believed there had been no real demand 6 on the part either of the clergy or the people who would be within the see of Wakefield for the foundation of a bishopric there. Wakefield had not only many historical recollections, but a supposed literary association which connected it for ever with English literature, and they would not easily institute a Bishop who would rival its immortal Vicar. The voluntary contributions required for the establishment of the four new sees on anything like a satisfactory footing would amount to not less than £750,000. The whole of that sum would be subtracted from the pious donations of the country; and, looking at the number of livings which were barely adequate to the support of those who held them, he thought such a sum would be better applied to the endowment of poor livings in large towns and to other objects of charity. But there was a principle involved in the Bill, as a whole, to which he objected. The Bill proceeded on the notion that there was some connection between increase of population and an increase in the Episcopacy. If there was any reality in this principle, how many Bishops of London ought there to be? The question of government had nothing necessarily to do with the amount of the governed. It should be remembered, however, that the present Episcopal Bench had been relieved of some of the duties that formerly devolved upon them. They had been relieved of the charge of property, and now received their incomes without trouble. Then, the means of communication between the different parts of the country had increased with the increase of the population. With the present means of travelling an Archbishop could pass from one end of his province to the other in a shorter time than a Bishop in former times could pass from end to end of his diocese. It was, therefore, not more necessary than formerly to increase the number of Bishops simply on the ground of the extent of the present sees. Could it be said that a Bishop was an overworked man? They were hardworked men, no doubt, because an honest man was always a hardworked man; but they could not be said to be overworked, except in so far as they chose to impose on themselves new and superfluous employment, such as in the frequency and abundance of confirmations. In Sweden and Norway 7 confirmation was regarded as obligatory. It was not so in this country. Here it was a rite which carried with it no secular or theological obligation. The Bishops now spent two or three months in the year in visiting small vicarages. They stayed with the local gentry, and administered confirmation to young children in small churches. He had heard experienced clergymen express their opinion that some harm was done by the change which gave greater facilities for the confirmation of children too young to understand the rite. Formerly, and when there were not such facilities, candidates for the rite came forward as a rule at more mature age. At that time children were confirmed in large towns and in large numbers. The Comte de Montalembert had once told him that the large numbers of the Episcopacy in France before the Revolution had seriously damaged the influence of the clergy; and he confessed that he thought that the position of the Bishops in this country would be much affected, and that for the worse, by such an increase. While opposed to an ostentatious display of their revenues, he wished to see the dignity of the Episcopal Bench supported—they were Lords of Parliament, and care must be taken to keep up the associations of that rank—and he thought that the Bishops ought to give themselves more leisure to pursue those studies in which Bishops of former days were so distinguished. He urged their Lordships to defer the passing of the Bill—he did not think the Church would suffer by the delay. After the question had fermented longer in the minds of the people, it could be dealt with more effectually. The Bill, as it stood, put it in the power of any wealthy man to found a bishopric by leaving £100,000; and he thought the creation of new bishoprics, by such fortuitous and undignified methods, with comparatively small endowments, would not promote the usefulness, dignity, and power of the present Bench, but would rather imperil the relations of the Church with the State, and it was not unworthy of consideration that, by the operation of the rule by which Bishops succeeded to vacancies in the House according to their date of consecration, if the number of Bishops were greatly enlarged many Representatives of the old historical sees would for years be excluded from 8 this House. The noble Lord concluded by proposing his Amendment.
§ Amendment moved, to leave out the word ("now,") and add at the end of the Motion ("this day six months.")—(The Lord Houghton.)
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, we on the Episcopal Bench feel very much indebted to the noble Lord (Lord Houghton) for his criticism of this measure, and we are sensible that we ought to be particularly grateful to him for the instruction we have received at his hands. We are so much in the habit of delivering charges to other people that we appreciate the great advantage of having a charge delivered to ourselves. I do not know, however, that we can unhesitatingly accept all the advice for the conduct of our office which my noble Friend has been so kind as to give us. There is one point, however, put forward by the noble Lord in which I entirely acquiesce. It is that the Bishops should have more leisure for those learned pursuits which were followed by our predecessors; but if we are to have more leisure, this can only be obtained, if we do not diminish our own labour, by calling in assistance for the discharge of our duties. But the noble Lord seems to think that we should not give our clergy access to our houses, nor waste time in visiting their houses; and he suggests that if we were to confirm thousands of children together on one day, things would go on better, although there might not be opportunity for those addresses which precede the rite of confirmation. I cannot accede to that view—I should not be disposed to accept more leisure for the Episcopal Bench on those terms; and if we are to have more leisure without curtailing the active work of the Episcopal office, this can only be accomplished by multiplying the number of persons engaged in Episcopal functions. I am not, however, prepared to say that there is not a great deal in what my noble Friend said against the multiplication of such officers as Bishops. There is the same thing to be said against the multiplication of the Judges. In either profession it is not easy to find fit men for those offices. If the proposition before the House was one for an increase in the 9 number of Judges, my noble Friend might have urged that it would be difficult to find fit persons to fill the office of Judge; and that, if the existing Judges only tried their causes according to the system he proposed they might save themselves a good deal of trouble, and it might not be necessary to give them any assistance. Neither can I accede to what my noble Friend will permit me to call his paradox—that an increase in the population afforded no grounds for an increase in the heads of the Ecclesiastical and Judicial Establishments. No doubt it is true that the facility of communication is much greater now than it was in past times; but I contend that in respect of all those offices an increase in the population must be an element in the settling of how many officers you are to have to discharge those important duties which Judges in the State and Bishops in the Church are called to discharge. The opposition of the noble Lord to this measure is not intended, I suppose, to lead to a division. Indeed, the opposition which this Bill meets may be said to be of two kinds—active opposition and passive opposition. The active opposition of the noble Lord is different from another sort of active opposition. He is so satisfied with the Bishops as they have been hitherto that, with that tremulousness which comes on us all in advancing age and makes us shrink from change, he would rather have the old state of things than run any risk by entering upon any novel state. But the other—the active opposition—takes a different form. It comes from those who wish ill to the Establishment which my noble Friend is anxious to preserve. I have had the advantage of reading a publication which has been circulated by the opponents of the Established Church, and their opposition takes this form—that the Bishops are altogether so bad that the fewer of them you have the better. This may not, perhaps, be intended to apply to the Bishops of the present day, who are admitted to be pretty hardworked, but to the Bishops of past days, to whom my noble Friend looks back with sincere and heartfelt regret. Now, this sort of active opposition may be allowed to be set off against the other; but what we have more reason to be afraid of, if not in this House, yet elsewhere, is the inert, 10 passive indifference to an increase of the Episcopate. The argument which my noble Friend has adduced, that the money might be better spent, is a sort of idea which enters into the minds of a great many persons. If the proposal in this Bill was to take funds from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and to distribute those funds in forming new bishoprics, there would be considerable force in the argument of my noble Friend. But that is not so. In one part of his speech the noble Lord underestimated, and in another he made a large allowance for, the willingness of persons to come forward and endow these new bishoprics. I do not believe that a single pound would be withdrawn from the charities of the country or from the maintenance of the parochial clergy in consequence of the endeavours made to establish the new sees proposed in this Bill. My Lords, there is a fear in the minds of some persons that the new Bishops would not be the same sort of Bishops as the old ones. Now, to judge of this, we must look to experience. We have had within the last year, through the exertions of Her Majesty's Government, two Bishops added to the English Episcopate. Neither of them as yet have seats in this House, and therefore I am entitled to say of them that two men more fitted for the office to which they have been called could not have been found in this or any previous generation. The eminent scholar and divine, and the devoted parish priest with so large an experience in St. Giles and St. Pancras, will neither of them suffer by comparison with any Bishop in this House, either at the present or at any former time. I believe there may be some disadvantage in the fact that a Bishop must have arrived at perhaps a somewhat advanced age before attaining a seat in this House. I can understand anyone looking back to the late Bishop of Exeter and the late Bishop of Oxford, and considering what a disadvantage it would have been if those eminent men had not been able from the first day of their entering on the Episcopal office to exercise their talents for the edification of this House and the country. As my right rev. Brother (the Bishop of Peterborough) happens not to be in his place, I may remark that the debates here—which are not always particularly lively— 11 would suffer if he could not be heard in this House. But, in all such matters, to obtain certain benefits we must be prepared to run certain risks and to suffer certain disadvantages. The innovations of one age which are looked at with distrust become the venerable institutions of another age. The noble Lord (Lord Houghton), in a published letter which I read with great attention, stated that he would be content to remain under the see of Ripon—but that is one of the brand new sees. My distinguished Predecessor, by his inexhaustible activity, made the see of Ripon venerable though it was new; and when my noble Friend becomes accustomed to his new neighbour—the new Bishop of Wakefield—not only will they, I doubt not, be the best of friends, but the see of Wakefield will be a venerable institution under which my noble Friend will be glad to repose. It is most desirable that the country should understand that the objections made to this proposition are not really so strong as my noble Friend supposes them to be. There was a great change in these matters at the time of the Reformation. Six new sees were added to our Episcopate when the country began to bestir itself under the influence of the Reformation. One of these was afterwards suppressed, but five remained. Now, I can imagine some Conservative of that time, or even some person who, having followed in the wake of reform up to a certain point, began to think that, after all, the old was better than the new, and, looking with alarm at the foundation of the sees of Chester, Oxford, Peterborough, and Bristol—I can imagine him saying that it was hopeless to expect ever to find in those sees men of the same sort as those who filled the princely sees of Lincoln and Ely, the Bishop of which see had a residence at Hatfield, while the see which I fill was occupied by a Prelate who resided at Knowle. But, after all, the Bishop of the brand new Chester wrote one of the greatest of our theological works—Pearson on the Creed; and the see of Bristol, on which such a person might, perhaps, have looked with great contempt, Butler's Analogy is for ever associated with. I will not trespass on the time of your Lordships by speaking of the spiritual duties which devolve upon the Rulers of the Church. I think your 12 Lordships will agree with me, in spite of what the noble Lord has said, that a multiplied population must require greater exertions on the part of those charged with the office of Bishop. I think your Lordships will agree that an age, which has seen in so short a space of time as 40 years, some £30,000,000 expended on the building and restoring of churches, must have created an increased demand on the officers of that Church; and I think, also, you will agree with me that, with the measure which Her Majesty's Government have laid before us, we are not in the presence of an indefinite scheme of which we do not see any close. The reform of a great Institution like the Church of England ought, no doubt, to be gradual, but it ought to be real; and a Bill like this should be framed with a view to a future time. I do not expect that the moment this Bill passes the whole of the four sees will be immediately founded; but I think it is wise legislation to contemplate what additional supply the government of the Church will require; and then, having made a change as great as any which has been made since the Reformation, it is right to pause for a time, without going on to any such indefinite changes as the noble Lord anticipates may follow from this Bill. The advantage of this Bill, and that which will commend it to the common sense of the country, is this, that whereas former proposals—made, no doubt, with the best intentions—were indefinite, this is definite; it tells distinctly where the sees are to be, how many there are to be of them, and the exact status which the Bishops are to occupy. I do trust that this measure—which is really one of the greatest reforms proposed for the Church of England since the Reformation—will be the means of greatly strengthening the Church. I believe it will not be popular with those who wish ill to the Church of England. But still I have such confidence in many who are separated from us by their conscientious convictions, that I cannot believe it will be found their policy to oppose a measure only because it strengthens an Institution from which they are dissociated. I believe it will be considered that this is an important measure for the better government of the Church of England, and that it will be heartily accepted by that vast body, both of members of the Church 13 of England and of persons not connected with that Church, who look on that Institution as one of the greatest safeguards for the highest interests of this country. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will strongly support Her Majesty's Government in this endeavour greatly to benefit the Church which we desire to see useful, devoted, and prosperous.
§ LORD EBURYsaid, he confessed he did not view this Bill with complete satisfaction. He was the more desirous to say so, because he did not agree with his noble Friend who led the opposition to the Bill (Lord Houghton) in most of the objections he had made to it. His noble Friend had said that he did not think the increase of population was any reason for increasing the number of Bishops. From that opinion of his noble Friend he entirely differed—he thought the noble Earl who had charge of the Bill (Earl Beauchamp) had made out a good case on that ground. There had been a vast increase in the population of this country during the last 50 years, and—as an army which was not adequately officered would operate under the greatest disadvantages—so we ought to have a proper number of officers in the Church to discharge the duties which this increase of the population must throw upon them. The most rev. Prelate who had just sat down had said that there were generally two kinds of objectors to an increase of the Episcopate; one, who thought that those already existing were quite adequate to the discharge of any additional duties they might be required to perform; the other, that the Bishops were so bad that it would be very unadvisable to add to the number. His noble Friend (Lord Houghton) had adopted the former of these objections, though he (Lord Ebury) begged to say that he had no idea of using the expressions which had fallen from the most rev. Prelate. He entertained objections somewhat of the latter description. It was true that the Bishops themselves had declared to the whole world that there existed among members of the so-called clergy of the Church of England a conspiracy to destroy the principles established by the Reformation in this country; but they had no security, to judge from the action of a considerable number of their present Bench, that their future Bishops might not be so far unfaithful to the duties they had undertaken as to go 14 on encouraging Romanizing practices. He might be told that there was no reason for him to suppose that the learned and honourable men who would fill the new Sees would be unfaithful to their trust. But he could not but recall to their Lordships' recollection a remarkable passage in a speech made by his noble Friend (the Earl of Shaftesbury), whom he regretted not to see in his place, when commenting on a work called The Church and the World, by Mr. Orby Shipley. His noble Friend said—
I am called a Low Churchman, and I believe I am. But if the appointment of all the Bishops to Sees were put into my hands, I should bestow the greatest care and attention upon the duty; yet, after they had been a short time on the Bench, I should feel no confidence in them.The Church of England was an institution that was rooted in the minds of the people—it was so interwoven with their feelings and so congenial to their tastes; but it must be the Church of England, the Church of the Reformation, and not the Church of Rome. For these reasons, while he could not oppose this Bill, he could not view the proposed increase in the Episcopate with entire satisfaction.
THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he should cordially support the Bill, although he thought that anyone who considered it carefully must acknowledge that it would have several effects, different, at least, if not opposed to each other. He did not care to follow closely his noble Friend who moved the rejection of the Bill (Lord Houghton)—firstly, because the majority of his noble Friend's arguments had been met by the most rev. Primate; and secondly, because his noble Friend spoke on the assumption that all Bishops were in the nature of mere civil stipendiaries. Of course, if that were a true view of the case, a deal of his noble Friend's argument was fair and well founded; but if, on the other hand, the office of Bishop was essential to the Church of England from a spiritual point of view, the question assumed a very different aspect. His noble Friend quoted the case of the French Bishops, and mentioned that the late Comte de Montalembert objected to an increase in their number. He had never heard this before, but if the story were accurately reported, his impression was that M. de Montalembert objected, not because the Bishops, 15 as such, were multiplied, but because the multiplication, of Bishops involved an increase in the number of stipendiaries who were absolutely under the control of the State. However that might be, the reason why he, for one, gave his hearty concurrence to the present Bill was this—he could see it was one of those measures which gave a certain amount, at all events—he did not wish to put the matter too high—of real life to the Church of England in her work, and which strengthened her essential institutions, thereby enabling her the better to discharge the duty that was laid upon her. His noble Friend hardly did justice to the immense amount of labour which devolved upon a Bishop in any ordinary diocese. A Bishop had to discharge several duties. There was, in the first place, the supervision of the clergy—and the more minute that supervision was the more completely the Bishop performed his duties. Next, a Bishop had to look to the organization of the many diocesan institutions which in former times had no existence. This duty brought him into close relations with the laity. Lastly, a Bishop had to deal with the discipline of the clergy; and it was impossible for anyone to avoid noticing the growing uneasiness which prevailed in the relations existing between the governors and governed of the Church of England. The Bishops who maintained the best discipline within their dioceses were those who made their personal influence and character felt. It stood to reason that this should be the case. There was probably at this moment no clergy in Europe so learned and cultivated as the clergy of the Church of England; and it was but reasonable to suppose that such men would be more easily moved by the personal influence which a Bishop could bring to bear upon them in his relations with them than by the enforcement of his authority as a mere servant of the State. No man, he supposed, ever undertook larger work, and carried it out more successfully in administration, than the late Bishop of Winchester. Like all men of the highest order of ability, that Prelate had to suffer much criticism during his life; but since his death men of all sides had generously acknowledged that it was impossible to overrate either his ability, his self-devotion, 16 or the practical success with which he administered his diocese. The late Bishop of Winchester was one of his oldest and best friends, but he did not think that circumstance coloured his estimate of his work. Yet he happened to know that Dr. Wilberforce, with his extraordinary grasp of details, and with his unwearied power of application, felt himself, during his latter years, overtasked by the labour of his diocese. On all these grounds he thoroughly believed that this Bill would be a very great benefit. On the other hand, there could be little doubt that, as his noble Friend (Lord Houghton) had remarked, the new Bishops would in a certain sense be a new order introduced on the Episcopal Bench. This Bill, no doubt, endeavoured to place them on the old footing; but the new element, especially when introduced in a considerable proportion, must affect the body into which it was introduced, and, to a certain extent, there must be more difficulty in maintaining the status hitherto held by the Bishops. But, as the most rev. Primate had shown, we had had changes repeatedly made in the Church of England, and as time wore on those changes had lost their original character, and had been felt to be a means of strengthening her foundations. His noble Friend who moved the rejection of this Bill was probably old enough to remember a very different external state in many respects among the highest Prelates in the Church of England. Probably his noble Friend could remember the stately banquets at Lambeth; perhaps he remembered the time when the Bishop of Durham kept a pack of hounds for the county; and all could remember the princely income which the late Bishop Sumner enjoyed when he lived at Farnham Castle. All these were picturesque and striking times of a system which had been, so modified that it might almost be said to have passed away. They constituted one of the visible signs of the power of the great State Church. Then it was undoubtedly the Church of the rich and the powerful and the influential; and it was at the same time a Church that was steeped, with some few exceptions, in a deep lethargy. Now, although the Church of England might be shorn of a large portion of her worldly splendour, there was no reason to regret the change 17 which had been effected—because he believed in his conscience that as religious stagnation was the deepest curse with which any Church could be smitten, so, on the other hand, the activity of spiritual life was the highest blessing which could be granted. There existed Episcopal Churches in the United States and Canada, and their elasticity and power of extension were, amongst other things, due, in great measure, to the multiplication of Bishops. It was due, also, to the freer air which such Churches breathed. He, for one, certainly did not wish to place the Church of England in the same position as the Colonial Churches; but if such a change was to be avoided, it would be, not by a strict adherence to the status quo, but by removing the shackles and restrictions which impeded her action, and by affording her that amount of liberty and fair play in her institutions which almost every other religious denomination enjoyed, and that liberty which the spirit of the times allowed and which circumstances rendered desirable.
THE BISHOP OF DURHAMsaid, that, as Bishop of one of the dioceses which this Bill would affect, he desired to make a few observations. He ventured to disagree with the noble Lord who had moved the rejection of the Bill (Lord Houghton) on the point of the usefulness and influence of Bishops. He did not think the noble Lord meant to go so far—it would be an injustice to their Lordships' feelings, to the sentiment of the Church of England, and to the noble Lord himself—as to believe that it was by the depth of the purse and the splendour of the equipage that the influence of a Bishop was to be measured. The Episcopate would not have lasted to the present day if its usefulness had been measured by its wealth. When the saintly Bishop Wilson, whose fame now extended over the length and breadth of the land, came from his diocese of Sodor and Man to Court, with shoes that had thongs instead of buckles, King George III. came forward and said to him—"My Lord, I beg your prayers;" and, in doing so, he was only speaking the feeling of the country. It was the work of that Bishop, his piety and energy, which spread his name far beyond the limits of his diocese. And when he (the Bishop of Durham) 18 referred to the Princes Palatine of his own diocese, they were not remembered for their wealth or pomp—although, in going from one part of Northumberland to another, he had met with traditions of the Bishop's coach-and-six coming to grief, and being unable to overcome the roughness of the Northumberland roads—but the memory was handed down from father to son of the simplicity of the life of some of the Durham Bishops, and the generosity with which they had forwarded every good work in their diocese. And while he regretted that the salaries of the new Bishops would be only £3,500 a-year—for with those means they would not have so many opportunities of doing good as their richer brethren had—he was satisfied that, whether it was in the castle of the nobleman, or the residence of the squire, or among the cottages of the poor, it would not be the amount of income which the Bishop had, but the earnestness and sincerity with which he did the Episcopal work, that would make him remembered. He quite agreed with the noble Lord in the inexpediency of a large increase in the Episcopate—over-officering a regiment led to as many inconveniencies as under-officering—and the clergy of the day did not seem inclined to submit to that larger degree of interference which an increase of the number of Bishops would imply. If the number of Bishops were increased in the same proportion as the population, then more than 100 Bishops would be required. But other considerations, besides mere increase of population, came in to affect the question. There was the large number of the population which did not belong to the Church of England; and, above all, the improvement in the character of the clergy. But this Bill applied to certain special cases where there had been a very large increase of spiritual work, and where an increase in the number of Bishops was absolutely required. The state of things had very much altered during the last 20 years. Since the last Census the population of Durham had increased more rapidly than any other county of England, and amounted to considerably more than 1,000,000; and so within the last 50 years the number of benefices in Durham had doubled, and the number of clergymen had more than doubled. All this demanded a much greater 19 amount of work on the part of the Bishop, and he could not agree with the noble Lord who had moved the rejection of the Bill. Nor could he agree that the work of a Bishop with regard to confirmation was comparatively unimportant work. On the contrary, if the noble Lord went to any part of the country where a Bishop was holding confirmation, he would hear both clergy and laity say that there was nothing which gave more strength to the Church than the increase of confirmations performed as they now were. He believed the income of the bishopric of Durham could bear the proposed contribution to the new See to be formed out of its diocese; but it seemed to him that when they came to bishoprics of £4,000 or £4,500 a-year, it would be impolitic and unwise to reduce the income of the Bishop, instead of leaving the laity of the diocese to find the endowment. He should himself feel very keenly the separation from Northumberland, where he had met with so much kind and hearty support. But there was a strong feeling in the country that the separation was of such importance and of such lasting benefit to the Church of England that they had unwillingly consented to it.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONsaid, it appeared to him, as a common sense view of the subject, that as populations increased, livings became subdivided, and the number of the clergy multiplied, there must, as a matter of course, arise the need for the increase of the supervising power. He was also of opinion that a person occupying the position of a Bishop ought not to be overwhelmed with work. As to the objection that the increase of the Episcopate would tend to encourage sacerdotalism, while he admitted that there had been times when the spirit of sacerdotalism predominated among the members of the Episcopal Bench, or, at all events, among the more prominent members of it, he would point out that what now remained of that spirit was confined to a small portion of the beneficed and to some of the unbeneficed clergy. An increase in the number and efficiency of the Episcopacy would in all probability do much to put an end to any extravagance in that direction. What was most required for the Church, he might add, to have clearly inculcated, was a spirit of obedience to the law; and he believed that if there were more frequent 20 access to the Bishop of the diocese and greater opportunities of listening to his counsels, a very powerful effect would thus be produced in the way of reducing to order some of those elements of disorder which now existed, and placing the clergy of the Church of England more in harmony with the laity. He wished, further, to observe that too little use had, in his view of the matter, been made of the bishopric of Sodor and Man. The clergy in the Isle of Man were tolerably numerous; but the livings were very small—averaging, he believed, not more than £200 a-year. The Bishop was at the present the owner of most of the tithes, and if those tithes were to be relinquished, they would make a most valuable addition to these poor livings. If the see of the Isle of Man could be incorporated with Liverpool a very great advantage might, he thought, in that way, be conferred on the population on both sides of the water. An eligible ecclesiastical residence might be obtained, and £1,000 a-year secured towards the income of the new diocese. He hoped, therefore, some further means would be taken than he found in the Bill to utilize that ancient bishopric. With that exception, he saw no clause in the Bill to which objection could be fairly made.
§ THE EARL OF POWISprotested against the notion of uniting the bishopric of Sodor and Man with that of Liverpool. The union proposed in 1835 had been repealed by the late Lord Ripon. He did not think the inhabitants of Liverpool would be disposed to draw from the poverty of the Isle of Man the funds for the augmentation of the Episcopal income; although the present Bishop of Sodor and Man seemed to be of the same opinion as his predecessor, who, when the late Lord Derby had translated Homer, said he hoped he would also translate Horace. The change would be in every way undesirable, and he hoped that the Bill would be maintained in its integrity.
§ THE EARL OF REDESDALEwished to point out one effect of this Bill, as it concerned the attendance of Bishops in that House. There would be more of the old Bishops, and fewer of the young ones. He suggested that it would have a very good effect if a provision could be introduced into the Bill to enable a Bishop, after he had had a seat in that House for a certain number of years— 21 20 years—to retire from attendance at the House, and permitting the next Bishop on the roll to succeed him.
§ On Question, that ("now") stand part of the Motion, resolved in the affirmative; Bill read 2a, accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday, the 4th of April next.
§ House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, Eleven o'clock.