ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Methodists of Durham. It has been said by the historian of the Northum- 

 berland and Durham miners that 



the earnest men who have been stigmatised 'Ranters' have been working out the social, 

 intellectual, and moral improvement of the miners, and in this great reform they have been 

 materially assisted by the temperance advocates who have from time to time laboured 

 amongst the miners. 8 * 1 



On the death of Bishop Barrington k the see was offered by Lord Liver- 

 pool to Bishop Van Mildert, of Llandaff. The appointment was made at a 

 moment when the dignified clergy, and indeed church institutions generally, 

 were beginning to be the objects of a hostile criticism, which increased as the 

 years went on." 3 The announcement was received with mingled feelings of 

 surprise that Llandaff should prove a stepping stone to Durham, and elsewhere 

 of satisfaction that the new bishop was an exception to the long list of prelates of 

 distinguished family, and that he had neither sons nor nephews to promote."* 

 Letters which survive sketch pretty vividly the early months of a bishop new 

 to the county and engrossed by the multitude of engagements of all kinds 

 which awaited him. 6 " The description will stand mutatis mutandis for an 

 account of the first entrance into the diocese of any bishop of the eighteenth 

 or early nineteenth century. The bishop's primary charge, delivered in 1827, 

 gives expression to the anxiety which all churchmen then felt in regard to the 

 growing disposition to ' wage war with established opinions, chiefly because 

 they are established.' "* He considered the diocese to be ' in general well 

 conditioned, and its pastors well disposed." " 7 This somewhat optimistic im- 

 pression was rather modified in the next years, so far as the diocesan organiza- 

 tion was concerned. 



Van Mildert opposed the bill for the Emancipation of Roman Catholics, 

 and beheld its triumph with feelings of considerable misgiving, if not of 

 alarm." 8 He did not, however, oppose the repeal of the Corporation and 

 Test Acts, and in such an attitude to the two measures felt that he carried 

 the diocese with him." 9 In 1831, despite ill-health, the bishop gave his 

 second charge shortly after the rejection of the original Reform Bill. Such 

 a time of political exasperation was not a good opportunity for pastoral 

 work.' 70 He complains of the preoccupation of men's minds with the con- 

 troversies of the day, and also he complains of the animosity and exaggeration 

 which characterized the attack upon the Church. And yet substantial pro- 

 gress had been made in the four years since the former charge : twenty-seven 

 new schools had been added, and eighty-five united to the National Society. 

 Various glebe-houses had been built, and fourteen churches or chapels had 

 been erected, whilst eight others were proposed or in progress.' 71 Increasing 

 acquaintance with the diocese had displayed a great and increasing want of 



40 Fyncs, The Miners ofNorthumb. and Dur. 182-3 quoted by Kendall, op. cit. 187-8. A summary sup- 

 posed to have been written by Mr. W. T. Stead in 1875, says, speaking of the early days of the movement : 

 The accounts published at the time concerning the results produced by their ministrations among the semi- 

 savage colliers of the North remind us of the glowing narratives of the most successful missionaries.' Ibid. 188. 



** Sermons and Charge t, 525. 



** 4 Dur. County Advertiser, Feb. 1 8*6, quoting current London newspapers. 



* ' Life ' (by Ives) prefixed to Sermons and Charges, 74-7. 



"* Sermons and Charges, 523. 



"Ibid. 8 1. "Ibid. 94. "Ibid. 91, 541. 



* Ibid. 535. See also a sermon, 279, 'A sort of anti-pastoral spirit singularly characteristic of modern 

 times continually undermines our best efforts.' " Ibid. 537. 



7 



