first to last, through evil report and good report. And in doing so he only maintained a principle which had been declared over and over again, not only to be permissible, but to be the pride, the boast, and the glory of the Anglican Church, which, it was said, had never in the darkest hour of her adversity swerved from it. From the brief sketch we have given above of the new archbishop's antecedents, it may, I think, be justly concluded, that he was pious, conscientious, humble-minded, affectionate, severely ascetic to himself, while full of indulgence for the follies and weaknesses of others.

If Charles and James, in choosing a successor for Sheldon, really acted from the motives that Burnet attributed to them, they must have speedily discovered their mistake, for one of the first steps taken by Sancroft after his appointment to the primacy, was to wait on the Duke of York, in company with Morley, Bishop of Winchester, to endeavour to persuade him to renounce the Romish opinions he had embraced, and to return to that religion to which his father had been so strongly attached, and for which he was even said to have laid down his life. Sancroft appears to have taken this step at the instigation of the king, or at all events with his concurrence. It seems difficult to imagine that Charles, who was himself secretly a member of the Roman communion, should have sent the newly-appointed archbishop to convert his brother from a religion which he himself believed to be the only true one, to a religion in which he had no faith at all. But it is very easy to understand that a thoroughly unprincipled Roman

Catholic, such as Charles was, would have been glad to have seen his brother profess a religion which he believed to be false but knew to be popular, rather than one which he thought to be true but well knew to be decidedly unpopular. At any rate, he may have hoped that the step which was taken by Sancroft and Morley, avowedly at his instigation, might lead his subjects to look with less suspicion on his motives, and might help to lull the anti-Popish storm that was just then beginning to rage with redoubtable violence. Be this as it may, the character of Sancroft forbids us to suppose that he would have alleged that his proceedings were sanctioned by Charles, unless this was really the

case.

Sancroft and Morley accordingly waited on the duke as representatives of the bench of bishops. The duke, having been already informed of the purpose of their visit, listened with respectful patience to a lengthened address from Sancroft, very ill calculated to produce the effect he and Morley hoped for. He then replied that he gave the bishops full credit for their good intentions, but felt that to be pressed on such a point just before the meeting of Parliament was very injurious to his interests, and that he suspected that the persons who had urged them to take this step, at such a moment, intended to do him an injury-a statement which it seems difficult to reconcile with the allegation that the king himself had authorized or ordered this effort to convert his brother back to the Anglican communion. The duke courteously declined to go further into the

matter, and begged his episcopal visitors not to take it amiss, or feel surprise that the great pressure of business obliged him to dismiss them. The two prelates then withdrew, having completely failed in their attempt to reconvert the duke.

No sooner had Sancroft been appointed to the primacy than he began to display a degree of zeal and activity in the discharge of his archiepiscopal duties which contrasted most favourably with the indolence and indifference of his predecessor, under whose careless and regardless rule abuses had grown up and flourished in luxuriant profusion. Foremost among these abuses, and most mischievous in its consequences, was the practice that prevailed very commonly of giving to very undeserving persons letters testimonial by means of which they obtained admission to Holy Orders. These testimonies were frequently signed then, as they too often are even now, on no other ground than that they had been signed by others. In order, as far as possible, to put a stop to this flagrant abuse, Sancroft issued a circular addressed to his suffragans, in which he urged them to use greater strictness in ascertaining the characters of those who applied to them for admission to Holy Orders on the strength of testimonials given without due inquiry into the characters of those who had obtained them.

Another matter which occupied the attention of the new primate was the augmentation of the revenues of poor benefices. At the time of the Restoration many of them were so much reduced in value that they might be denominated rather starvings than livings. Through

the urgency of Sancroft the matter was at length pressed on the king's notice, and Charles, who gladly seized every favourable opportunity of asserting practically the ecclesiastical supremacy which he continued to claim, but which the House of Commons steadily refused to allow, had, by his own authority, directed the bishops and other Church dignitaries to make reservations from their incomes which were to be applied to the augmentation of the stipends of poor vicars and curates. The Parliament demurred a good deal to a mandate given in a manner so unconstitutional; yet the object was so strongly supported by the clergy, and therefore so popular in the country, that the king's order, objectionable as it was, was subsequently confirmed and sanctioned by an Act of Parliament, the provisions of which, however, had been imperfectly carried out, the persons whose incomes it affected having refused or neglected to obey it.

Sancroft had this matter much at heart. In the situations he had filled before his nomination to the primacy, he had become acquainted with the full extent of the evil which the Act was intended to remedy, and had moved in the matter earnestly but ineffectually. Now that he was primate he acted more energetically and with better results. He sent letters to his suffragans, which he directed them, in their turn, to transmit to their deans, archdeacons, and prebendaries, strictly enjoining them to put the Act in force, and punctually and effectually carry out its requirements; and afterwards he directed that all bishops, deans, and archdeacons should send him particulars of all the augmen

tations made by them or their predecessors, with the names of the parishes relieved and the sums received for the use of their incumbents, subscribed with their own hands, that he might know what had been done with regard to the matter throughout the whole kingdom, thus anticipating to some considerable extent by a stretch of his own authority the action of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the present day, and providing a remedy for a great evil which at that time was tolerably efficacious.

In this and in various other ways did Sancroft employ the authority of his office in improving the efficiency of the Church and raising the character of her ministers. It is true that when he began to exert his primatial authority in a way that interfered with the temporal interests of some of the wealthier clergy, he found it was much more limited than it was generally supposed to be. But at that time its limits had not been brought into question, nor had the powers of the primate been fully ascertained or clearly defined, and therefore claims that had not been subjected to a legal test were often admitted without much examination.

We who have lived to see how powerless the law of the Church often is for the enforcement of discipline, can appreciate the difficulties with which Sancroft had to contend in endeavouring to compel recalcitrant dignitaries to discharge the duties of their various offices faithfully, even when those duties were enforced on them by special legislative enactments. But the aims of Sancroft were so evidently right, he carried with him so entirely