The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-19 00:00:00

The fa is am these : tration of Dr. BLOMFIELD.

On Sunday evening, the sth of January last, the
wife of Mr. BALER, a tradesman in Oxford-street,
was on the point of death, and, wishing to see a
clergyman of the Established Church, one of Mr.
att-gn's establishment, Miss JAMES, hurried to the

church of All Souls. where Mrs. BAUER had been
married, where all her children had been christened,

and where she was an attendant. There she ob-
tained the address of the curate, Mr. B.tco,i, whose

lodgings were some five minutes' walk from Mr.
BAUER s house. 'Miss JAMES hastened on to Mr.
BACON, and entreated him, without delay, to come to
Mrs. Mum. Mr. BACON refueled, on the ground that
she was not one of his parishioners, and referred Miss
JAMES to the clergymen either of All Saints or St. An-
drew's; Mr. B.i e sat's housebeing, he said, in one or other
of those districts. Now the clergymen of those districts
are notoriously tractarians; whilst the tradesman's
I dying wife was a protestant. On her way to secure
the attendance of one of them, Miss Jauss, it seems,
learnt the character of their religious opinions, and,
shrinking from the responsibility of introducing such
spiritual aid to Mrs. Bailin, she returned to Mr.
Tacos, stated her objections, renewed her entreaties,
and was again repulsed. In this extremity of woo
Mr. BAUER appealed to a neighbouring tradesman,
who immediately waited on a third clergyman, Mr.
Bustritwxlms; and he, after the lapse of an hour
and a half, daring every minute of which Mrs.
Bat-ER was expected to expire, brought religious
comfort to the dying woman.
Miss JAMES thought Mr. B.‘CON'S conduct "ma-
cluistian and uncharitable," and Mr. Ilarmt, in the
depth of his affliction, deems himself to have been
"cruelly used," and is of opinion " that religion
should not be confined to a district, but any clergyman
should visit the dying when applied to, and not throw
difficulties in the way, and seem to make a business
of it, as was the ease lust Sunffity night." On the
other hand, however, the Bishop of Lox mix, on the
facts being submitted to him. had not a word of sym-
pathy to bestow on the dying wives of Oxford-street
tradesmen• thus treated by the clergy of Marylebono
when seeking fire spiritual consolation, but is grimly
and sternly of opinion that Mr. Reflex "acted in
conformity with the principles of our parochial law,"
and adds, " You are not at liberty to visit pastorally
any of Mr. Itieftxtues parishioners without his con-
sent"—a determination that will probably deprive
the great majority of Mr. Riensoos' parishioners of
all pastoral attendance when in the agonies of death,
seeing that they are protestant.; and lie is a tracta-
elan; or, in other words, seeing that he and they am
of antagonistic religious opinions and hold nearly op-
posite schemes of salvation.
Undoubtedly the law is as laid down by the
Bishop; and if he had been appealed to as a judge of
the hind instead of as a supenntending clergyman,
not one word could have been said against his frigid,
icy answer. But, if one of the duties of a bishop be
to see that the laity of his diocese have proper
spiritual consolation when they request it, then,
though his reply may read the law aright. it never-
theless reads that duty very wrongly. There arc,
however, two
'points to be considered in the case;
first the curates, then the bishop's conduct.
For one clergyman to visit. indiscriminately out of
his hounds would, besides being unlawful, be produc-
tive of disvonl, disorder, and jealousy. But
this general rule, like all others, must have exec
lions, and one of those exceptions was elturfi
presented to Mr. Hams in Mrs. list. sit
state. here was a dying woman entreat-
ing the aid of religion ; and though the
hand of death pressed heavily upon her, form and
mmetiliousness kept the clergyman sent for away.
Surely in so awful an emergency in the life of a hu-
man being common humanity, setting aside all ho-
lier considemtions, dictates that Mr, Ilseos's first
duty was to attend the porting penitent ; that done,
next to Wit• . the facts of the ease to the parochial
clergyman and to his bishop us a justification for his
solicited interference. Such is not, however, the
view the Marylebone clergy take of the mutter.
I They contend that if Oxford-stisrt tradesmen don't
catch bold of the proper minister, their wives must
die without religious eonsoluti ~,,, and no one has a
right to complain. This, we say, is very shocking.
ifishop BLOMFIELD says it is lawful. To la• sure,
it is. But then the law assumes that all clergymen
of the church of England teach one and the same
scheme and doctrine of redemption; and, conse-
quently, that every parishioner can find in his own
parish the same plum intelligent and consolatory
religious iustruction and edification that are to bo
secured in the next. If such were the ease pa-
rishioners would be wrong to go out of their parishes
for such aid on merely personal grounds. But is
such the case in the diocese of London generally?
Was such the ease in the ecclesiastical district
in which Mr. BAUER lived? Notoriously—scan-
dalously not. What moral right then has the
Bishopof LONDON to pen up the inhabitants of a parish
to teaching differing in almost every parish? tor the
Bishop to tell the parishioncm of All Souls' district
that the only clergymen they can consult are its pro-
testant ministers, and in the next breath to tell tho
people of All Saints' or St. Andrew's that they must
submit tothe ministrations of their tractarian priests,
is a piece of inconsistency so practically awful that
notlung but the leathern and hardened conscience of
prelacy could give vent to it. Substantially it is the
promulgation of two different religions under the
authority of the Bishop of Lomas. For, conceal,
and cloak, and disguise it as we will, there are two
opposite schemes of redemption hieing taught in the
Church of England; and by Dr. Iftmostraso's rigid
application of parochial law in this question of pas-
toral duty, both schemes are equally eneourugcli by
him. No wonder the faith of the laity is becoming
unsettled, when, practically, episcopacy is promoting
scepticism !
The very efforts (and they have been great) of
DIAILOMEIELD to extend the parochial system in his
I diocese have only brought into stronger and stronger
light this awful and shocking state of things in the
church of England. Ilea, in this (MAC, are three
of his new districts, in which reign "confusion worse
confounded;" in two he has highflying tractarians,
in the other protestant clergymen. 'The consequence
is, that in the former the parishioners fly their parish
churches, either worshipping out of their districts, or
in dissenting chapels; and that when the dying
wives of tradesmen in the latter scud for ortlMdox
ministers, they arc referred by those very.ministers
to clergymen from whose teaching, when in health,
they shrunk in dismay. This can't last. If episco-
picy, highly paid, can't preserve us from these fright-
ful inconsistencies, of what use is it ? To build
churches and so serve them, is to perplex the laity,
not to extend the usefulness of the church. N o
could not be worse, and might be much better off, if
we put our prelacy on shorter commons than 12,0001.
a year in London, and 15,001. a year in Canterbury.
What an episcopacy this of Dr. Ilionststo's is !
Ile has built more churches, and raised more doubts,
got together more money, and been engaged in more
squabbles, exhibited more activity, and committed
more inconsistencies, been more zealous as a church-
man, and more regardless of church truths than all
the other bishops put together. And the cud of all
is that neither clergy nor laity in his diocese know
what ere his real views, wants, or wishes, and that,
as poor Houses SMITH used to say of the vicar of
Brighton, though constantly in hot aster, he never
conies clean out of it.
Lord Jots has asked Cardinal WISEMAN to tette a
to Bane. Could he not give Dr. Bionsmit a hint,
to shad the see of London?