ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



openly identified himself with the evangelical party. 1 He was an inde- 

 fatigable bishop and attempted to animate the clergy with his own spirit, 

 bidding them preach sermons of an evangelical nature, insisting that by their 

 reading and earnestness they should do justice to the liturgy and rightly 

 administer the sacraments. 1 Regretting the number of non-resident clergy, 

 he pointed out that it was due to the great neglect of parsonage houses in 

 former times and to the narrow incomes of some livings which made licensed 

 pluralities almost a necessity. Although the population of the diocese had 

 increased in eighty years by about one-third, the decrease in full services in 

 parish churches was a little less than a third, again owing to the poverty of 

 livings. During Ryder's episcopate John Keble, 'the true primary author' 8 

 of the Oxford movement, became curate of Southrop in 1823.* In the two 

 years of his stay there his Oxford pupils, Robert Wilberforce, Isaac Williams, 

 and Hurrell Froude, were much with him. From 1826 to 1835 he lived at 

 Fairford as curate to his father, the vicar of Coin St. Aldwyn, publishing 

 The Christian Tear in 1827.' In 1833 he preached the summer assize 

 sermon at Oxford on National Apostasy, and wrote No. 4 of the Tracts for 

 the Times* 



Bishop Kaye, who succeeded to Bristol in 1821 and held the sec for 

 eight years before he was translated to Lincoln, stimulated a revival of 

 teaching and discipline, admonishing his clergy to preach sermons which 

 should reach the hearts of the people and to conform to ritual. 7 As in other 

 dioceses, the record of the Church in 1833 was very different from that of 

 1800.* In his charge to the clergy of Gloucester in 1828, Bishop Bethell 

 said : 'I have reason to flatter myself that the spiritual duties of this diocese 

 are performed for the most part in a satisfactory and efficient manner.' * In 

 1832 Bishop Monk declared that non-residence ought to be called the 

 misfortune rather than the opprobrium of the church in that diocese, for in 

 nearly every case the cause was the want of a parsonage house ; over 100 

 parishes were destitute of anything which could be converted into a 

 residence, and in these, almost without exception, there were sectarian 

 congregations. 10 Although there were many cases of two benefices held by 

 the same person on account of extreme poverty, there was not a single 

 pluralist enjoying excessive revenues. The question of augmenting small 

 livings was a difficult one, for in 1836 out of 279 benefices 123 were in the 

 gift of private individuals; 11 however, the bishop set aside a tenth of his 

 income for that purpose. After a visit to Cheltenham in 1836, Charles 

 Simeon wrote : ' I have almost had a heaven upon earth. The churches so 

 capacious, and so filled ; the schools so large, so numerous, so beneficial ; the 

 people so full of love ; the ministers such laborious and energetic men.' 11 



As a result of the Ecclesiastical Commission in 1836 the see of Bristol 

 was united to Gloucester, the new diocese of Gloucester and Bristol consist- 

 ing of the county of Gloucester and the northern part of Wiltshire. 13 The 



1 Diet. Nat. Biog. 1, 46. ' Three charges to the clergy of the diocese of Gloucester. 



1 J. H. Newman, Apologia, ch. i, p. 17 ; Overton, The Anglican Revival, 34. 



4 Coleridge, Memoir of Keble, 108-10. * Ibid. 146, 154. 



' Ibid. 218 ; Overton, op. cit. 54. ' Charge to the clergy of the diocese of Bristol, 1821. 



1 Ovcrton, The EngKih Church of the Nineteenth Century, 8. 



' Charge to the clergy of the diocese of Gloucester, 1828. " Ibid. 1832. " Par/. Papers, 1836. 



" Carus, Life ofCharlet Simeon, 783. " Land. Gaz. 1836, p. 1734 l8 37> P- 2I 74- 



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