tion to raise it and ourselves every day more and more in the estimation of mankind, by exerting our utmost efforts to diffuse both by our doctrine and our example a general spirit of true christian piety, and a general purity of manners throughout the land. By this we shall contribute our part, and a most essential part, to the welfare of the community; we shall add the powerful sanctions of religion to the authority of the laws, the silent operation of national virtue to the visible effects of political wisdom and integrity; and, above all, we shall secure to our country, and to ourselves, the favour and protection of that Almighty Being who can alone ensure to us the prosperity and tranquillity we now enjoy, whilst a large part of Europe is convulsed to its very centre; and who, amidst the dissolution of kingdoms and the wreck of empires, can alone preserve our admirable constitution both civil and ecclesiastical uninjured and unimpaired.

A

CHARGE

DELIVERED TO

THE CLERGY

OF THE

DIOCESE OF LONDON,

AT THE

VISITATION OF THAT DIOCESE,

IN THE YEAR 1794.

THE FIFTH EDITION.

WHEN I had last the pleasure of meeting you here, there were three subjects (among others occasionally touched upon) to which I endeavoured to draw your particular attention: these were, the institution of Sunday schools; the augmentation of the salaries of your assistant curates; and residence upon your benefices. It is not my intern at this time to resume or to enlarge further on these topics, and that for the best of all reasons, because in all these respects my purposes have been answered, and my wishes accomplished, as far as, from the shortness of the time and the difficulties to be encountered, could, perhaps, in any reason, be expected. Several Sunday schools have been set on foot, in different parts, where none existed before. Their good effects, wherever they have been established, are apparent and considerable. The clergy begin to be convinced of their importance

S

portance and utility; and they are gradually increasing and diffusing themselves over the whole diocese. It is, indeed, most devoutly to be wished, that they should become universal throughout the kingdom. For when we know that in other countries schools of irreligion have actually been established, and children regularly trained up, almost from their infancy, in the alphabet and the grammar of infidelity; when we know too that the utmost efforts have been made, and are now making here, to shake the faith of the lower orders of the people, and to render christianity an object of contempt and abhorrence to them; surely it behoves us to counteract and to guard against these nefarious attempts by every means in our power; and more especially by diffusing, as widely as possible, among the infant poor, the opportunities afforded by Sunday schools, of acquiring the soundest principles and the earliest habits of morality and religion.

Some progress has also been made, and I trust will continue to be made, in improving the situation and augmenting the salaries of the assistant curates, especially in those unwholesome

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