seriousness breathed into the minds of men by the great convulsion of the French Revolution.' There was also 'the new recognition of the true relation of religion to literature, art and history, which was stimulated by a nearer insight into the philosophy and poetry of the Continent.' But behind all this there was the Evangelical movement, whether that which prevailed within the Church itself, or that vaster agency, which, originating in the personal activity of John Wesley, affected every Protestant community both in England and America.'

It was coincidently with the development of these energetic and expansive tendencies,' that the course described in these Memoirs was run. The inevitable issue of the Tractarian movement had not yet been reached. The revival of medieval practices was still a phenomenon of the future. 'Multiplication of daily services, daily and weekly communions, confession enforced or inculcated, postures and dresses,' were almost or altogether unknown. Even the 'special dogmatic forms' of that development of the Anglican movement which is called Ritualism were not only 'not welcome, but repulsive' to the most active members of the Church. Independently of these appliances, which by many are held to be the very essentials of Christian reality, there existed, as these Memoirs witness, 'a sound form of moral and religious life, not the less admirable because it sprang from a zeal tempered by common sense, and because it aimed not so much at the interest of a party, or even of a Church, as at the good of the whole community.'

Edward Stanley, the second son of Sir John Thomas Stanley, Bart., of Alderley Park, Cheshire, was born in London, January 1st, 1779. In early life he conceived such an ardent passion for the sea, 'that, as a child, he used to leave his bed and sleep on the shelf of a wardrobe, for the pleasure

of imagining himself in a berth on board of a man-of-war.' This passion never left him. In a certain sense it gave a colour to his life. He trained his family, he worked his parish, he administered his diocese, like a captain. 'The sight of a ship, the society of sailors, the embarkation on a voyage, were always sufficient to inspire and delight him.' And it is not a little remarkable that his remains were conveyed from the Western Highlands by sea, during the prevalence of an equinoctial storm, and landed by hardy boatmen, 'amidst the roar of the winds and waves on the familiar shores of his own diocese, where he had been so often cheered

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in life by the sight of his own darling element.'

With natural tendencies such as these, the profession of a Clergyman had no further attraction for him than that which it always must possess for a young man of blameless life, simple tastes and kindly disposition'-combined in his case with strong religious feeling. Nor had he any natural inclination for the studies which are congenial and essential to the clerical vocation. A further drawback lay in 'the almost entire neglect' of his early education; for when at eighteen years of age he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, 'he had to begin his course of study almost from the very foundation.' But when he found that he was destined to the life of a Clergyman, he set himself to remedy his deficiencies by unremitting exertions. In the success which crowned his career at College there were the tokens 'of that power of zealous application by which he was subsequently enabled to contend, in more important spheres, against greater difficulties.' The interest of his career lies, Dean Stanley says, 'not, as is usually the case, in the gradual development of the fitness of the individual for his post, but rather in the gradual surmounting of

the obstacles which nature or education had thrown in his way, and the adaptation of gifts to a condition of life for which they would not seem to have been originally designed.'

It is to be regretted that in these Memoirs there is no reference whatever to the growth of young Edward Stanley's religious life. This is the salient defect of many recent memoirs, more particularly of Clergymen of the Church of England. No one who reads the story of Bishop Stanley's life can doubt for a moment that he was a truly religious man, and that he was, sooner or later, divinely called to the solemn and responsible functions which he so nobly discharged. His success was the seal of his apostleship. But no record of a religious man's history, especially of a Minister of Christ, can be complete which does not contain some particulars of that passing 'from death unto life,' which, whether instantaneous or gradual, must be the beginning of a saintly career. Nor is it easy to

overestimate the value of such details to the multitudinous 'seekers after God' to be found in all classes of society. It is in the simple story of a man's conversion that many an anxious soul finds an answer to the question which is deepest in his heart: 'What must I do to be saved?'

In 1805, after spending three years in a Surrey Curacy, the future Bishop was presented by his father to the family living of Alderley. The natural beauty of the district, and its hereditary associations, offered great attractions to the new Rector; but the state of the parish was by no means encouraging. The previous

Incumbent had made it his boast that he had never set foot in a

sick man's cottage! The parish clerk had been wont to take up his post on the churchyard stile to see whether there were enough comers to form a congregation. But the difficulties of the position were an

inspiration to the new Rector. 'From the first moment of his entrance on his work, he devoted himself to it with an energy and exactitude which drew upon him at that time the reproach of singularity, and even of Methodism.' He took an interest in the schools of the parish such as few Clergymen in his day were wont to exhibit. He is said, indeed, to have been the first who saw and advocated the advantages of general education for the lower classes. Every house in the parish was systematically visited; and so kind and genial was his pastoral bearing, that the poor cottagers long afterwards described how their hearts beat with pleasure as they heard the short, quick trampling of his horse's feet as he went galloping up their lanes.' For the benefit of strangers, and for the recreant members of his flock, he caused placards to be posted in public-houses and in conspicuous points of the village, exhorting to a sober and godly life.

The moments of leisure which his busy life allowed him were not devoted to studies, of which the nicer subtleties, whether in scholarship, metaphysics or theology, were on every account distasteful to him.'

He was

always a devout student of the Bible, and was fond of contrasting its simplicity and freedom with the elaborate systems of later divinity; but, ' though giving a practical assent to the creed and worship of the Church of England, he never could endure minute controversies relating to the details of its doctrines and ceremonies.' But he always regarded the exhibition of the Divine goodness in the natural world as one of the purest sources of intellectual and religious instruction'; and he held the study of physical science to be part of a Clergyman's duty, and conducive to the edification of his flock. Ornithology was his favourite study; and his Familiar History of Birds

recalls the spirit and style of Gilbert White.

The work of his parish and the congenial study of nature were supplemented by the somewhat prominent part he took in questions of national and ecclesiastical interest. He was by conviction, as well as by hereditary ties, a Whig; and he did not shrink from the public avowal and defence of those principles of religious toleration and Church reform which at that time gave watchwords to the Whigs. But he 'abstained scrupulously from implicating himself in the personal and local details of party politics.'

In the spring of 1837, in the thirtysecond year of his Alderley pastorate, the See of Norwich was offered to him by Lord Melbourne. He had previously declined the Bishopric of Manchester, and his strong attachment to Alderley, together with his habitual distrust of his own powers,' would have led him to decline this overture also. But, after a long and bitter struggle, he accepted Lord Melbourne's offer, with the one stipulation, 'that his beloved charge should not be committed to a stranger.' deeply, however, did he feel the severance from his flock, that from the time of his appointment to the day of his consecration, he was unable to perform any of his official duties beyond pronouncing, with faltering voice, the benediction at the close of each service.

So

'those more flagrant instances of moral delinquency which, though rare in the Clergy of the Established Church, are occasionally to be found, and which often escape censure from the great difficulty and expense which attends their prosecution.' The contrast between his vigorous episcopate and the easy and indulgent policy of his predecessor was too marked to secure for him the general favour of the Clergy. For the first few years he was widely unpopular, and his greatest difficulties arose out of the hostile or unsympathetic action of those who should have been his most ardent coadjutors. The diocesan business was so distasteful to him, that, to use his own words, it seemed 'to curdle up and wither his very intellect and reasoning power.' But his trials were an inspiration. The presence of difficulty was always the signal for more determined perseverance. Erelong his efforts produced a visible and permanent effect. By the seventh year of his episcopate, his firm enforcement of the Plurality and Non-residence Acts had led to the erection of one hundred additional parsonage-houses; and in the course of five years more this number had risen to one hundred and seventythree. Three hundred and fortyseven additional services were conferred upon the parishes under his charge; day-schools were established in neglected districts; Confirmations, which under his predecessor had been septennial, were held annually; rural deaneries were instituted, and the diocese of Norwich became a pattern of ecclesiastical order and efficiency.

If the elder Clergy viewed the reforming tendencies of their diocesan with suspicion, his mode of conducting the ordination of candidates for the sacred office won for him the veneration and affection of the rising Ministry. The earnest and impressive charge, the deep-toned solemnity of the service, were associated with a

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tender and fatherly_sympathy which won all hearts. Learning on one occasion that a candidate was in low spirits as to his fate, he took the trouble to walk to the hotel where the young man was staying, to assure him that he need have no fear. another case, after conducting an examination for Priest's Orders, he walked into the town to inform the mother of a candidate of her son's success. Nor was his friendly intercourse with his Clergy limited to their ordination. His Palace was open to them at all times, and they were sure to be received with the most generous hospitality.

His counsels were all the more impressive because they fell from one who was himself an example of the fidelity which he sought to enforce. The remotest and most obscure parishes in his diocese were systematically visited; and as he walked through them, in company with the rustic Pastor, he would ask him to point out any persons to whom a word of encouragement, advice, or rebuke might be useful.' No wonder that a Clergyman should write after one of these visits: 'I felt as if a sunbeam had passed through my parish, and had left me to rejoice in its genial and cheerful warmth.'

While thus covering the whole area of the diocese with his care, the good Bishop was specially anxious for the welfare of the metropolis of the See. Here, as in his parish at Alderley, he gave his chief attention to the schools and to the poor.

With

the catholicity which always distinguished him, he visited the schools of the Nonconformists; charging himself, especially on his visits to the infant-schools, with packets of sugarplums; and when in the daily exercises and singing the children marched round the school, 'he would sometimes himself take one of them by the hand, and join the little procession.' His care for the poor was not limited to an active support of the various

charitable societies of the city, or to a personal organization of systems of relief. He used to say to me,' writes a Norwich Curate, ""If there are any deserving cases of sick in your parish, always tell me, that I may visit them; it is a kind of work I enjoy beyond all others." There was scarcely a back-yard or alley in Norwich where he had not visited, relieved and prayed with some poor soul.

But though so emphatically the friend of the poor, there were many who, notwithstanding his unbounded liberality to them, could never speak kindly of him to the day of his death. His avowed advocacy of the New Poor Law, and his strong opposition to the Chartist movement, at that time active in Norwich, exposed him to considerable obloquy. There were quarters of the city which, in the earlier years of his episcopate, he could never visit without danger of insult or annoyance.' It need not be said that this danger never turned him aside from what he considered the path of duty. On one occasion he addressed a Chartist mob which had gathered in the Cathedral, on the futile and mischievous tendencies of their principles.' On another, when the ceremony of consecrating a church was interrupted by a Chartist crowd, 'he insisted upon returning on foot through the crowd, though at times menaced with actual violence.' One of his enemies ventured to describe the Bishop, long after his death, as 'timid as a hare.' Let the following extract answer this charge: 'I remember,' says one, 'seeing Bishop Stanley, on a memorable occasion, come out of the Great Hall of St. Andrew's, Norwich. The Chartist mob who lined the street, saluted the active, spare, little Bishop with hooting and groans. He came out alone and unattended, till he was followed by me and my brother, determined, as the saying is, "to see him safe home," for the mob was highly excited and