A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



forced earnest men to erect for themselves. When they came in contact 

 with nonconformity, their attitude was that of conciliation ; but they 

 spared no pains, as Jonathan Banks said of Bishop Rainbow, to urge 

 the clergy 'in the diligent preaching of God's word : in the due adminis- 

 tration of the Holy Sacraments, in catechising of youth, and in 

 admonishing and reclaiming the more loose from their immoralities.' J 

 It is to this policy of positive teaching that one must ascribe whatever 

 measure of success the churchmen of that period attained in rebuilding 

 ' the city of their fathers' sepulchres.' The munificence of Bishop 

 Smith in the distribution of his private fortune is still bearing fruit in 

 some of the schools, churches and parsonages of the diocese. 



The pastoral care exercised by the bishops, and the condition of 

 the parish churches at this time, may be gathered from the articles of 

 inquiry and the replies sent in by the churchwardens at visitation. 

 The earnestness of the bishops cannot be doubted, but if we judge the 

 clergy and people according to modern standards, the verdict cannot be 

 given that they were filled with sentiments of decency and order in the 

 care of the churches and the performance of divine service. From a 

 study of the parish churches it is pleasant to turn to the mother church 

 of the diocese, of which we get a contemporary account from the pen 

 of one who had little sympathy with ecclesiastical observance. Thomas 

 Story states that about 1687 he went diligently to the public worship, 

 especially to the cathedral at Carlisle, where in time of public prayer 

 they used all, male and female, so soon as that creed called the Apostles' 

 Creed began to be said, to turn their faces towards the east ; and when 

 the word JESUS was mentioned, they all as one bowed and kneeled to- 

 wards the altar-table, as it was called, where stood a couple of Common 

 Prayer Books in folios, one at each side of the table, and over them 

 painted upon the wall I.H.S., signifying 'Jesus Hominum Sa/vafor* 



William Nicolson, archdeacon of Carlisle, an ecclesiastic of a 

 different type to his immediate predecessors, succeeded to the see on the 

 death of Bishop Smith in 1702. This prelate was a scholar of con- 

 siderable repute, a strong politician, a laborious and tireless worker, 

 whose fame was not confined to the district in which he lived. In 

 his letters, diaries, controversies and visitations, apart from his solid con- 

 tribution to the scholarship of his day, there is embodied a local litera- 

 ture of which we have no parallel in the history of the diocese. 3 In 

 his primary visitation in 17034 he has left an account of the condition 

 of the churches and the character of the clergy under his spiritual rule, 

 invaluable indeed as a record of many things which have long since 

 passed away, but so highly coloured that it is difficult to accept it as a 

 faithful delineation of the ecclesiastical life of the period. His views 

 of men and things not up to his own standard appear, like those of all 



1 Life of Bishop Rainbow (London, 1688), pp. 63-4. 

 Journal of the Life of Thomas Story (ed. 1747), pp. 3-4. 



8 Letters of William Nicolson (ed. J. Nicols, London, 1809) ; Diaries of Bishop Nicolson (ed. Bishop 

 of Barrow-in-Furness) in the Cumb. and Westmor. Arch. Soc. 'Irani, new series, vols. i. ii. iii. iv. ; 

 Miscel. Accounts of the Diocese of Carlisle, 1877. 



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