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During all this time he pursued his ordinary habits, doing his business with his wonted alacrity, and enjoying his family as usual. The attacks did not at all affect even his spirits." They had, moreover, the effect of calling out from some who did not think with the Bishop on many points, strong expressions of confidence in himself, and of indignation against his revilers.

It was fortunate that Bishop Blomfield was not thinskinned with regard to the attacks of the press, or of anonymous correspondents of his own, for both at this time, and during many years of his life, he enjoyed the distinction of being the best-abused Bishop on the English Bench. The temptation of being well spoken of by all men was one from which, at least during the latter half of his life, he had little to fear. But he was saved from suffering too much from the opposite misfortune, partly by his consciousness of the injustice of most of the attacks made upon him, partly by the engrossing nature of his occupations, which left him little leisure to think of those attacks, and partly by the humility of a genuinely Christian spirit, which would not disdain to learn something even from the accusations of malice or ignorance. He wrote to the Bishop of Gibraltar, in 1845, "One's life might be spent in contradicting false assertions and repelling unjust and uncharitable imputations, if it were not that one has something better to do;" and to Mr. Tyler, the vicar of St. Giles's, at the time of the newspaper attacks above mentioned, "I thank you very cordially for the kind manner in which you have spoken of the late virulent attacks made upon me in the Times. If I have not deserved them they will not ultimately do me

any harm; nor, indeed, as far as I have deserved them, if I know how to make a proper use of such trials of my patience. Once, when asked how he felt towards those who thus reviled him, he said, "Do you think I do not pray for them?" and this from one who, as a rule, concealed rather than betrayed his deeper religious feelings, had a force which those who knew him intimately could well appreciate.

The same month of November, 1844, was marked in the Bishop's life by a sudden and severe domestic affliction. The church of St. Mary, at Bury St. Edmund's-the place of his birth, and where his mother still lived-had been for some time in process of restoration; and at the re-opening, which was fixed for the 29th of November, Bishop Blomfield had been asked, and had consented, to preach the sermon. For this purpose, he set out for Bury, with his wife and two daughters, on the 26th; and, to use the words of his diary

"Arrived at five o'clock, and, to my inexpressible grief, found that my dear mother had expired only ten minutes before, after two hours' illness, from an affection of the heart, in the eightieth year of her age. God forgive me all my faults towards her, and prepare me to follow her!"

The suddenness of this shock, and the peculiar circumstances under which it happened, increased the Bishop's natural sorrow at the loss of one who had been an attached mother to him, and to whom he had been an affectionate and dutiful son; and there are signs of unusual emotion in the words in which he records her funeral:

"Dec. 3.-Followed the remains of my dearest mother to the grave..... In the same vault were interred, my dear father; my sisters, Louisa and Anne; and my son, Edward Thomas, who died in 1822, aged five. My sister Elizabeth will leave Bury, and then the last link which connects me with the place of my birth and education will be broken! Deus misereatur!"

Writing to his wife immediately after the event, he says:

"The loss of one dear friend makes us value those who are left more highly, and cling to them more closely. It is a great consolation to me to reflect upon your great and unvarying kindness to my dearest mother; to whom, from the first day of your connexion with her, you were, in all respects, as a daughter, and who loved you in return as a mother.

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About the same time, Bishop Blomfield took some pains to revive in his diocese the institution of Ruridecanal Chapters, which had long fallen into abeyance, but had lately been restored with good effect in one or two other dioceses. In doing this, he was only carrying out the view which he had expressed, more than twenty years before, when Archdeacon of Colchester, "that it would be most beneficial to the Church .... if a regular local superintendence might be exercised over the parochial clergy by Rural Deans; the appointment of which officers, as well as the holding of diocesan synods, which had long been disused in some dioceses, was discontinued in others after the great Rebellion, to the no small detriment of the Church." He thought that meetings of the clergy under the Rural Deans

1 Note to Archidiaconal Charge, p. 19.

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would be more useful, as well as more consistent with ecclesiastical order, than those of "Clerical Societies," which are apt to have a party character; and he trusted that, as iron sharpeneth iron, so the conversation on parochial duties, which will take place at the Ruridecanal Chapters, will have the effect of awakening to increased exertion those of the parochial clergy who seem to be hardly aware of the solemn and fearful responsibility of their charge."

These meetings were accordingly revived in the diocese, and have produced good effects, by making the clergy more known to each other, and promoting unity and friendly feeling.

CHAPTER IV.

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THE ROMANIZING PARTY
ROME-CHARGE OF 1846-PAPAL INFALLIBILITY-ESSEX REMOVED
FROM THE DIOCESE- PROPOSED NEW SEES-CORRESPONDENCE-
CONFESSION-ERASTIANISM-CHRISTIANITY

BISHOP BLOMFIELD ON SECESSIONS TO

AURICULAR
IN INDIA
-RELIGIOUS FRATERNITIES-THE BISHOP AND SIR ROBERT INGLIS.

THE dissensions which now agitated the Church, as they drifted away for a time from questions of ritual, became more and more mixed up with those of doctrine; owing, in great measure, to the secession to Rome of some of the most prominent Oxford theologians, including their leader. Bishop Blomfield— while he opposed what he considered the unconstitutional patronage given by the State to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, in the permanent endowment of the Maynooth College, which was carried by the Peel Ministry, in 1845-had to deal, at the same time, with the more dangerous support to the Roman Catholic cause in England, given by the deserters from our own Church. The condemnation of Mr. Ward, by the University of Oxford, for his work on "The Ideal of a Church," was closely followed by some proceedings, which created no small stir at the time, on the part of his friend and fellow-collegian, Mr. Oakeley, then incumbent of the chapel in Margaret Street. He claimed the right to hold, as distinct from teaching, all the peculiar doctrines of the Church of

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