pursue their course unmolested and unreproved, let it be allowed to us to do the same. We concede toleration freely and fully we claim only to be equally unmolested in our own privileges, and thus to preserve the relations of peace and amity. What more does Christian Charity require? Or what further advances can be made towards an interchange of good offices, without a compromise on one side or the other, or perhaps on both, of sincerity and truth?

Other topics still remain, to which I might solicit your attention. But it is time to draw to a conclusion. I cannot dismiss you, however, without expressing my satisfaction that I have been enabled to obtain, for a while, a place of residence in my Diocese, where I hope henceforth to pass some considerable portion of the year. This will, I trust, afford me opportunities of more frequent intercourse with my Clergy, and bring me better acquainted with those local and personal concerns to which my attention ought to be directed. I hope it is almost needless to add, that I shall readily avail myself of every such opportunity, as well for my own satisfaction as for yours.

With these assurances, I for the present bid you farewell; earnestly imploring the

Divine Blessing upon our mutual endeavours to promote that great purpose for which the Gospel was promulgated to the world and our Great Master lived and died, "GLORY TO 66 GOD IN THE HIGHEST, AND ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN."

66

A CHARGE

DELIVERED TO

THE CLERGY

OF THE

DIOCESE OF DURHAM,

MDCCCXXVII.

REVEREND BRETHREN,

ON this my first opportunity of publicly addressing you, I feel that I should ill satisfy either your just expectations or my own sense of duty, were I to omit a passing tribute of respect to departed worth, which cannot but be as much in unison with your sentiments as it is with mine.

The event that occasioned my being placed in the relative situation I now bear to you, deprived this Diocese of one of the most distinguished prelates of our time. It is impossible that you should look back to the period when he presided over you, without mingled emotions of satisfaction and regret.

Ll

Highly gifted with natural talents, and those talents highly cultivated and improved; your late revered Diocesan possessed also great advantages of birth and education, valuable acquisitions of extensive literature, and an enlarged acquaintance with mankind. These endowments, united with the best ornaments of the Christian character, unaffected piety and charity, obtained for him a more than ordinary share of general esteem, of veneration, and affection.

The continued operation of such excellent qualities for more than thirty years, has been manifested throughout this Diocese, in the improvement of the condition of the Clergy, in extending the education of the poor, in promoting an increased attendance on public worship, in establishing and supporting many valuable institutions, and in the encouragement of sound learning and exemplary conduct. Not only are there public proofs around us, in every direction, to attest the truth of these remarks; but probably most of those who hear me could bear their personal testimony to the same effect.

You may well conceive, my Reverend Brethren, that I deeply feel both the advantages and the disadvantages of following such a predecessor;-the disadvantages, on

the one hand, of being tried by such a standard;-the advantages, on the other hand, of having such a pattern for my guidance and direction. My encouragement in this respect is moreover greatly heightened by the reception I have already experienced among you, which assures me that my endeavours in so responsible a station will be regarded with all the indulgence that can reasonably be desired.

My connection with such a body of Clergy as I am now addressing, affords me, indeed, confidence of a still higher kind. No Diocese, I may venture to say, contains a larger portion of persons holding benefices and dignities in the Church, whose well-earned claims to such distinction are confirmed by the public voice. No where, I am persuaded, will be found, within the same extent, a greater number of individuals to whom pure religion and sound learning owe the most substantial obligations. Nor, I believe, shall we easily find a portion of our National Church, where, of such individuals, there are so many, either constantly or occasionally, resident upon their cures, and devoting their attention to parochial concerns.

The result is such as might be expected. Glebe-houses, well-conditioned, and propor