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placed in the city with no farther connexion with the Cathedral than belongs to its other inhabitants. At Chichester the Principal is not even one of the Cathedral Clergy; at Wells that office is indeed held by the Precentor, but apparently quite accidentally, and the students do not even attend the Cathedral Prayers except on Sundays, but have on other days services of their own in the Vicars Chapel, lectures being given during the time of the Cathedral Mattins. Secondly, at Wells at least, the students do not live in a collegiate manner, which is certainly essential; the common dwelling and the common hall are only next in importance to the common chapel. It is clear that if the Cathedrals themselves are to supply the required instruction, their influence must not be confined to the indirect working of the religio loci, but the theological students must be really incorporated with the Cathedral system and brought under the working of its general discipline. How then is this to be done? Must something entirely new be added to the existing institutions of the Cathedrals, to enable them to meet the want which it is agreed they must supply? Or ought we not rather to expect that, if they be really calculated and intended to be seminaries of theological learning, they will be found to contain some already existing element which, if brought into life and energy, and developed and adapted to the exigencies of the times, will be found capable of answering all the requirements of the contemplated Clerical education?

Such an element, we believe, will be found ready to our hands in the Colleges of Minor Canons and Vicars Choral, those especially of the Old Foundation. Of the present anomalous and monstrous position of the members of these bodies we have already spoken, and will content ourselves with again referring to Mr. Jebb's admirable remarks on the subject. We trust all true sons of the Church are becoming aware of the evil nature of the system which on the one hand consigns to unmerited contempt men who are Priests of GOD, and often personally pious, learned, and of venerable years, and on the other hand commits the holiest functions which can devolve upon a layman to men totally unecclesiastical in their character and conversation. From their present scattered condition we would recall them to the homes which in several places still remain to them; we would have them, where such do not exist, petition as those of Wells† are said to have done to a pious Bishop of old :

"Per vicos positi villæ, pater alme, rogamus
Ut simul uniti, te dante domos, maneamus."

The old discipline of the Vicars' College must be restored; its
common prayers, its common meals, its common studies. But who
are they who shall tenant the restored College?
Not the present

* Such at least was the case a year ago: we know not if matters are at all altered. †See Godwin's Catalogue of English Bishops, p. 301. Life of Ralph, Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Clerical Vicar with his family and his parish, nor the Lay Vicar with his secular calling, his attendance at concerts, and musicmeetings, and public dinners, but a band of Theological Students. We would have each Minor Canonry or rather Vicar's place put on much the same ground as a Theological Fellowship in the University, a maintenance while engaged in theological studies, not necessarily held in every instance by an ordained person, but being a title for Holy Orders, and requiring Ordination after a certain time. These Students would of course discharge their duties as Cathedral Vicars; the whole body would form the Quire, while those among them who were Priests or Deacons would be the assistants and deputies of the higher Clergy of the Cathedral. At the same time their studies would be carried on under the superintendence of fit persons among the Capitular members; the Chancellor and Divinity Lecturer, where those officers exist, being of course the persons upon whom this duty would most appropriately fall. An insight into parochial duties would also be acquired by engaging under the Parish Priests of the city in such ministrations among their people as would not interfere with their regular simultaneous attendance at all the Cathedral services. An acquaintance with the machinery of schools and the countless other minutiae of a modern parish would thus be acquired by those who are preparing for or just entering upon the sacred ministry before they are actually appointed to parochial charges of their own.

We do not of course mean to enter into the details of the system to be followed in case the scheme we recommend should ever be practically adopted. We profess to do no more than throw out hints, and draw a rough outline, the filling up of which would in every case require the gravest consideration of the Bishop and Chapter. We will however venture on a few more general remarks on the nature of the scheme and its advantages.

We should suppose that such a College would be open alike to graduates of the Universities and to other candidates for Holy Orders; and the instruction given would be strictly theological, of that nature especially which bears on the functions of the Parochial Minister. Each Vicar's place should be a title for Holy Orders; each Vicar should be required after such a course of study as might be fixed upon-though of course study and attendance at lectures would still be continued after Ordination-to receive the order of Deacon; the Priesthood might perhaps be left optional, as they would be always in the position of subordinates and assistants. Each place should be held on the same tenure as Fellowships in the Universities with regard to being vacated by marriage or preferment, -we might add by what would, in a right state, equally under ordinary circumstances, vacate a Fellowship, the acceptance of any cure-the Vicars having the option of the Chapter livings like the Fellows of Colleges and the Students and Chaplains of Christ

Church, Oxford. Strict Collegiate discipline would of course be enforced as to residence and all other points coming under that head; for its maintenance there does not seem any occasion for a distinct President; the Decanal authority would be surely sufficient. By these means a system of strictly Clerical Education would be provided for many of our future Clergy in the places and under the circumstances most advantageous for its full developement. It would be under the walls of the Cathedral, under the eye of the Bishop and his chief Presbyters, that the young Candidate or Deacon would pursue his studies and undergo his probation. The connection between the Cathedral and the Diocese would be strengthened by men who had worshipped and ministered within its walls being scattered as Parish Priests through the benefices and curacies of the Diocese; even those whose lot might be cast in another Diocese from that where they had received their education would surely carry with them a sort of Cathedral feeling which must act most beneficially in restoring that most desirable, though now well-nigh forgotten, tie which should bind the Parish to the Cathedral, the Daughter Church to her Mother. And with regard to the Colleges themselves, the double scandal which at present attaches to them would be altogether avoided. The anomalous condition of the Clerical Vicars would be got rid of; for an anomaly there certainly is, since even if all personal slights were removed, as we may hope they will be by a personal kindly and Christian feeling, there is undoubtedly something at war with all notions of propriety in such a complete subjection of one Priest to another, especially as no inferiority in years or personal qualifications is at all implied. And the perhaps still greater scandal of the Lay Vicars would be got rid of also this too is an inherent evil in the present system, and could not be removed by any amount of individual worth and piety. The position of the Lay Vicar, apart from all considerations of personal character, is decidedly objectionable; as long as he is practically looked upon as a hired assistant, merely engaged for his choral talents, and while no objection is made to his exercising any secular calling, he will neither feel himself nor be esteemed by others as an integral member of the Cathedral body, as a person whose whole life and care is to be devoted to the service of the Church equally with those of her ordained Ministers, as a person strictly Ecclesiastical, one of the xλñpos in its old extended sense, though neither Bishop, Priest, nor Deacon. But by the proposed scheme both these objections would be removed. The whole number of Vicars, Clerical and Lay, would form, as the Collegiate arrangements of the old Cathedrals show plainly they were meant to form, one united body. Those in Holy Orders, being mainly Deacons, would be in their correct Diaconal position, as assistants and subordinates; their subjection to the Canons as Priests would be only the due order of the Church, and should not be felt as either

irksome or degrading; for of any personal slights from those who should be their guides and fathers we will not speak, we will not anticipate evil, and if such existed they would be only personal sins. And even if any were Priests; as they would still be young, still learners, an honourable subordination to Priests of greater age, learning, and experience, as the Canons of a wellordered Chapter of course would be, cannot be open to valid objection. The Lay Vicars would no longer be merely secular persons, looked upon, as Mr. Jebb* indignantly says, as "mere organ-pipes, mere channels of sound," but really members of a Collegiate body, men unordained indeed, but whose whole character and position would be purely Ecclesiastical; whose home would be the Sanctuary, their duties God's worship and sacred studies, their reward, if found faithful, promotion to His more immediate service as His ordained Ministers. Surely no better preparation could be found for that sacred calling; the Ordination of such men would not be the sudden transition from one state to a totally different one which it now too often is, but rather the final consummation of a previous vocation, every feature of which would tend to that end.

We have a few more observations to make in conclusion. It must have been observed that we have had in our thoughts throughout the Vicars' Colleges of the old Cathedrals, which are Corporations distinct from the Chapters in their endowments and the management of them, and having an existence distinct from theirs both in the eye of the law and of the Church. This is perhaps a point of no great consequence, but if the system which we have been recommending should be introduced, or indeed if discipline is to be really exercised under any system, their Collegiate character in other and more important respects must be revived, and the new Cathedrals herein assimilated to them. The Minor Canons and Lay Clerks of the new foundation might be formed into similar Colleges without necessarily involving a similar independence as Corporations. And as this change is indispensable to the very being of our scheme, we have taken it for granted in all our foregoing remarks.

But it may be said that the numbers on the foundation of these Colleges would be very inadequate to supply the present demand for Clergy. Doubtless it would be infinitely too small; but if they were once established as educational Colleges, there would be no reason to confine their benefits only to those on the Foundation; these would remain and form the nucleus, while any number of Students might be admitted, who would stand to them in the same relation as the Commoners in Academical Colleges do to the Fellows and Scholars; being on the same footing with regard to discipline and instruction, but having no share in the endowments of the College. And here a field would be opened for the munificence of

* Choral Service, p. 103.

pious individuals in the foundation of Scholarships and Exhibitions for the support of the more needy; we might especially look to the Chapters themselves, or at least the more well-endowed among them, to extend the benefits of this instruction and discipline, by adding to the present number of Vicars. And might we not hope that the existing Cathedral and Collegiate Churches would not be the only places where such Foundations would arise? The Churches which, once Collegiate or Conventual, are now merely parochial, would be far more likely to be restored to somewhat of their former dignity, if it were understood that the institution of a Chapter would involve that of a College for the practical training of our future Clergy. Thus would S. Alban's, Tewkesbury, Beverley, Stafford, Higham Ferrers, and many more,-may we not even add some of our ruined Abbeys?—even if none of these became, as we trust many will, the seats of future Bishops, be again, as Collegiate Churches, the abodes of more solemn worship, and of the nurture of our future Priests in godly discipline and learning.

The only theoretical difficulty which can be well conceived,-for of course many practical ones, to be overcome by perseverance and faith, will be found in the way of any scheme of reformation, where deep-seated abuses of long-standing are to be eradicated,—would seem to be the apparent witness of experience to the contrary; in the only case where an educational College has been attached to a Cathedral the scheme has signally failed; the Cathedral has been lost in the College, the Scholars have driven out the Bishop. We refer of course to the Cathedral of Oxford, which, as every one knows, is practically only a College Chapel, the Diocesan character of the Chapter being merged in the Academical both in their own view and that of others. But this was the result of circumstances which would not exist anywhere else. At Oxford the Cathedral and its Students were erected simultaneously as totally new institutions: neither the Bishop nor his Chapter possessed the dignity and prescription with which the associations of ages had invested the University; the whole genius loci was purely Academical; it was no wonder therefore that the Cathedral establishment should become only one, though in some respects the pre-eminent one, among the Colleges of the University, and consequently that the Bishop should, even more than in other Cathedrals, be practically driven from his own Throne and Church. But in every other city the Cathedral is the eldest, the most venerable, the most powerful of its Ecclesiastical institutions, the centre of all its hallowed associations of the past, and hopes for the future: its Canons are, as such, in every respect the most dignified Presbyters of the city and Diocese; there would be no fear either of the College asserting its independence of the Bishop and his Chapter, or of sinking the other functions of the latter body in that of mere instructors of youth; unless indeed in the course of years both Chapter and

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