is the necessary result. The times immediately succeeding the Usurpation afforded ample proof of this, for no times were so remarkable for infidelity.

Your obedient Servant

ANTI-FANATICUS.

DILAPIDATIONS.

To the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer.

SIR,

I WAS much gratified by finding in your last Number that your attention has been called to the very important subject of "Dilapidations." Much doubt seems to prevail with regard to the proper acceptation of the term itself; and I am not aware that its meaning has any where been laid down with accuracy and precision. The effect of this deficiency has been, that a great want of uniformity prevails in the practice of adjusting claims for "dilapidations”— in some dioceses great latitude is given to the term, and in others it is confined to little more than the repairs of the roof and walls. Serious injury to the family of the incumbent is the frequent consequence of the former practice; and of the other, the neglect and gradual ruin of Church property. It is much to be desired that these evils should be prevented by a revision of the law on this subject: that the Bishops should have the power to enforce the repair of glebe houses, as well as of the chancels (to which that power does extend) during the life-time of the incumbent. But without presuming to frame schemes of reform, which like others so called, might only shew the folly of the projector,-I will bring to your notice a case and opinion upon this subject, given by the present Lord Stowell, in 1795. -I have good reason to know that it is genuine and to believe that it has never before been made public; and I think you will afford very desirable information to many REMEMBRANCER, No. 71.

of your readers by inserting it at some convenient opportunity in the pages of the Christian Remembrancer. I am Sir,

Your obedient servant,

AN OLD INCUMBENT.

FOR SIR WILLIAM SCOTT.

CASE.

There being a difference in opi. nion between the Rector of A-and the Executrix of the late incumbent thereof, respecting the true sense of the word "Dilapidations," and a very wide difference in consequence between the estimates of the workmen employed by the same parties, Sir William Scott is desired to give the legal acceptation of the word "Dilapidations," that is, whether it implies the same as, or more than, what is generally understood by the words "complete repairs in common tenantry:" and if more, how far he thinks it extends beyond them.

ANSWER.

66

I am of opinion that "Dilapidations" go beyond what is generally understood by complete repairs in common tenantry, at least beyond what I understand by that expres. sion. I understand by Dilapidations" (and I think I am fully supported by the decisions of competent courts in understanding so,) such repairs and renewals, and, if I may use the word, renovations, if necessary, of the house and its appendages as will enable the incumbent to enter upon and inhabit them at the period the law entitles him to take possession, or as soon after as may be, allowing reasonable time for those repairs, &c. &c.

"Dilapidations" therefore will include not only all repairs merely substantial, but likewise some of a more ornamental nature. The house must be in a proper condition as to white-washing, and paint, because it cannot otherwise be decently inhabited: I do not mean 4 Ꭲ

ACCOUNT OF A SUNDAY SCHOOL AT
BOLTON LE MOOR.

To the Editor of the Christian
Remembrancer.

SIR,

ONE of those delightful occasions for travelling, in which business and pleasure are united in the fairest proportions, brought me a short time since to Bolton Le Moor, a town situate in the great manufacturing district of Lancashire, and containing, with its neighbourhood, at least 30,000 souls. To some persons the sight of millions of men employed in laboriously increasing the commercial wealth of our favoured land, is productive of infinite gratification. The mechanical ingenuity, every where displayed, gives them high ideas of the power of the human mind; the industry and activity that prevail, seem, in their view, to have no other end than that of providing for the comfort of society as if no nation could be unhappy, whilst arts, manufactures, and commerce, pour wealth into the coffers of the merchant. The commercial prosperity of England is a glorious theme for the statesman's oratory, and so long as we take wide superficial views of things, we may join with him in exultation. The detail, however, of the means by which this prosperity is maintained, is of far different character, and I am persuaded that no one who believes that religion and virtue are the only sure and solid foundation on which national as well as individual happiness rests, can con-template the population of a manufacturing district without sorrow. Mr. Malthus, years since, threatened us with the prospect of famine, and alarmed us by the fearful comparison, of the arithmetical progression of means of subsistence, with

the geometrical progression of population. The Rev. Gentleman could not now do better service to his country than by turning his attention to calculate the extent of the spi. ritual famine which the want of Churches proportionate to the population is daily producing. A widely-peopled manufacturing dis trict is a sort of moral desert, where the souls of men pine away for want of religious instruction, whilst their bodies are pampered by prosperity to riot and excess.

With these feelings, Mr. Editor, I approached Bolton Le Moor. You will imagine the real joy I felt at finding a Sunday School which is in a flourishing state of religion amongst that portion of the popula tion: it was something that cheered my spirits, and gave me reason to believe more fully, that the presence of evil always tends powerfully to the promotion of good.

It was my good fortune to pass a Sunday at Bolton when the present Bishop of Chester was there, and to hear his Lordship preach a very edifying discourse to one of the fullest congregations I ever beheld. The singing in the parish Church is more devotional than any I have heard, the whole congregation joining with one heart and voice in singing praises to God. Much of this good order is to be attributed to the effect of a Sunday School, which has been established some years, and contains no less a number than 1300 scholars. To this school, the Vicar and his amiable lady pay no common attention. The scholars assemble on Sunday morning at nine, and continue to be instructed till the Church service begins; they

The Rev. Mr. Slade, Prebendary of Chester, Author of the Annotations on the Epistles. ED.

meet again before the afternoon service, and afterwards they return to the school to sing their evening psalm and say their evening prayer before they are dismissed. The business of the school opens and ends with the singing of an hymn and appropriate prayers. The schoolhouse is a large building, containing au upper and a lower room, each 90 feet long by 30; the upper room is used by the girls, the lower by the boys. I could not but admire an ingenious contrivance whereby the two schools are enabled to join in the same psalmody and prayer, the floor of the upper room being made to open in the centre for so considerable a space as to admit of the organ in the upper room being heard by the boys below, and the voice of the Vicar reading the prayer at this opening is heard with the greatest ease, at the further extremity of the lower as well as of the upper room. The school-house was erected by subscription six or seven years since; the whole expence of instructing these 1300 persons is defrayed by a collection at the collection at the Church door once a year; for here all the teachers are gratuitous; several ladies have each a class, many of the mechanics contribute their leisure hours on a Sunday to take charge of the boys; the young women who compose the elder class, which is under the Vicar's especial instruction, have also classes under them. If my information was correct, there are 24 classes in each school. The children love the school, and the strongest attachment exists between them and their teachers. As a proof of the desire which prevails to belong to it, I saw at least twenty children, who were permitted to come to the school and wait by themselves, as candidates for admission when vacancies should occur. Every young person in the school pays one penny a week to a sick fund, out of which those who are sick receive each four

shillings a week. So admirably

does this plan succeed, that the school fund has now considerably more than 3007. in hand.

Schools of this description cannot indeed be formed in a day, but why should not zeal tempered by judgment, be able to effect the establishment of them in every place where the population is numerous ? What has been done by the worthy Vicar of Bolton, might be, and ought to be done universally, and instead of our National Schools training up, as experience now proves, children for Dissenters to enlist under their banners, we should have places where the youth might continue to be religiously instructed during the most eventful period of his age, and the young female be preserved from those dangers which, in the lower orders of society, accompany a sabbath mis-spent. The Sabbath school is the great engine now employed by the Dissenters to attach the poor to themselves-let the Church look well to this-the poor are willing to send their children whilst very young to the National School, but the early period at which they remove them has always been a cause of deep regret to the promoters of those pious institutions. The only remedy for this evil, and therefore the only means whereby the Church may reap the harvest which she herself has sown, will be found in the universal establishment of Sunday schools, both for the young children and also for the youth.

Great designs cannot be accomplished in a few days or years; but I trust that, ere many more years pass, we shall see some great attempt made by the Nation not only to supply the want of Churches, but also to complete, by Catechetical Sunday Schools, what is manifestly deficient in our National System of Religious Education.

I remain, with much respect,
Yours,

October, 1824.

C. D.

explaining the words spoken as referring to God, and the shepherd sent, he enlarged on the duties of spiritual shepherds, and addressed the Clergy present; then adverted to the Missionaries, who were sent by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Society for Propagating the Gospel; to the zeal necessary to bring such Missionaries there, and the arduousness and importance of the duties in which they had engaged; concluding an appropriate and impressive sermon with a suitable application to the Candidate for Ordination that day.

The sermon being ended, the Lord Bishop of Calcutta took his seat at the altar; and the Clergy, being assembled near the altar, were then addressed by the Bishop seated in his chair.

This is not the place for entering into the details of his Lordship's excellent Charge, particularly as we shall, most probably, have an opportunity of noticing it again hereafter more fully and correctly; but we cannot forbear making the following extract from it, in which his Lordship touches on the character of his revered Predecessor in the See, Bishop Middleton.

"Had the mind of that great and good man (Bishop Middleton), observed his Lordship, been at tracted to secular purposes, he was possessed of every quality on which the world bestows its favour. But though his memory was stored with all profane and civil literature, the application of his learning and talents was to ecclesiastical purposes alone. He was perhaps the second critic of his age, yet he edited no Greek classics; he was stored, as I have been assured, with an inexhaustible supply of lighter and more elegant literature, yet he sought to be remembered as a Divine and a Theologian alone. Nay more, when his life-long labours were at length approaching to their term, as if fearing the applause of men, even in those branches of learning,

which were strictly appropriate and ministerial, he consigned, as a last sacrifice, his laboured manuscripts to the flames; content to live only in the memory of those who loved and honoured him; and desir. ing no further praise than that which he shall one day receive of, Well done! good and faithful servant!"'"

His Lordship concluded his truly Christian Charge with a short prayer.

The Clergy having returned to their seats, the Venerable the Archdeacon brought up the Candidate for Ordination, Mr. Christian, habited in a surplice, to the rails of the altar, when the Ordination service began, the Bishop reading the Litany, and the Candidate reading the Epistle appointed in the Office, after receiving imposition of hands and authority to officiate in the place whereto he was appointed.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

Chester District Committee. On Monday, Oct. 4th, pursuant to notice given by advertisement, and by circulars,

a Public Meeting of the Members and Friends of this Society was held in the Chapter House of the Cathedral. It gives us great pleasure to say it was very numerously attended, and certainly was the most respectable Assembly ever convened in Chester, under similar circumstances, with a similar object in view. Amongst the noble and distinguished persons present were-The Lord Bishop of the Diocese, the Right Hon. the Lord Kenyon, Sir R. Williames Vaughan, Bart. M.P. the Mayor of Chester, the Very Rev. Dr. Vaughan, Dean of Chester, the Rev, the Vice-Dean, Mr. Ward; the Rev. the Chancellor, H. Parkinson; the Rev. Unwin Clarke, ArchRev. Prebendary Maddock, Rev. Messrs. deacon of Chester, the Rev. Dr. Trevor, Armistead, Mawdesley, P. W. Hamilton, Ayckbown, Mytton, Eaton, Casson, M. Davies, Massie, W. Currie, W. Richardson, Lyon, Harrison, Edwards, Pearson, M. D. Taylor, Llewellyn Lloyd, Hoskins, Godwin, Baldwin, Williamson, Folliott,

jun. Clarke, &c. R. Barnston, Esq. Alderman, Larden, Dr. Thackeray, Dr. Llewellyn Jones, Thomas Dixon, Esq. John Fletcher, Esq. George Harrison,