By the Rev. Canon W. R. Rick Jones. 167 



Archbishop in selecting Richard Hooker for promotion was the means 

 of raising up the most efficient instrument to contend against the 

 special difficulties and dangers that at that time beset the church 

 of England. Indeed Jewel and Hooker were perhaps the two most 

 powerful " apologists " that she ever had. The latter, indeed, speaks 

 of his early friend and benefactor, Bishop Jewel, as "the worthiest 

 divine that Christendom hath had for some hundreds of years." 



Nor do we quite complete the list of defenders of the Church of 

 England who have held the stall of Netheravon, with Richard 

 Hooker. Within some thirty years after him we meet with the 

 name of Robert Pearson, who became Arehdeacon of Suffolk ; and 

 then in some twelve years more his illustrious son John Pearson, 

 who became Bishop of Chester, the author of the " Exposition of 

 the Creed," one of the grandest vindications of christian truth ever 

 published. 



But I must hasten on ; for there are yet a few of my predecessors 

 of whom I should just like to make a passing notice. The first of 

 them was Thomas Ward, a namesake, and a nephew of the bishop. 

 And a hopeful nephew he must have been, for I chanced one day 

 upon a letter, among the Tanner MSS, at Oxford, in which Bishop 

 Seth Ward thanks His Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for a 

 dispensation, granted at his own request, for the said nephew to be 

 ordained deacon and priest in one day. Just one month afterwards 

 his benevolent uncle collated him to the stall of Netheravon. Within 

 two years he exchanged that stall, which was a poor one, for that of 

 " Gillingham," which — as Thomas Fuller, who held it, testifies — 

 was by no means the worst in the Cathedral, and the next year he 

 got that of Teynton, which was the gold en prebend" of Sarum. 

 Five years afterwards he was also safely landed in the Archdeaconry 

 of Wilts. Of his acts and doings for the Church I can tell you 

 nothing — and the probability is that he did nothing. He was well 

 appreciated by his episcopal uncle, but I fear by none besides. In 

 truth the appointment led to a serious quarrel between the bishop 

 and the dean— ^the latter of whom, by the way, had been refused a 

 prebend for his son — which so worried the bishop, that at last his 

 poor Lordship went crazy. 



