Untitled - Electric Scotland

2 6o LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT .
spring and summer. He promised
[CH. xi.
to make a further
appeal for funds, and to undertake, if desired, the entire
responsibility of finding preachers for the Sunday even
ings; but the Chapter, to his openly-expressed disappoint
ment, unanimously declined to accede to his request, and
it was not till long afterwards that the services were
maintained throughout the year.
While these Cathedral negotiations were still incom
plete, the Bishop set himself to promote
in the Parish
Churches of North and East London most of which
were pew-rented a series of Sunday Evening Services
for working people. The experiment, strange as it now
sounds to say so, was altogether novel, and therein
perhaps in part lay
the secret both of its success and
of the opposition offered to it. The following is one of
the placards which were issued in Bethnal Green :
"SPECIAL SERVICES FOR THE PEOPLE. BETHNAL
GREEN.
"
(All seats to be perfectly open to all.}
To the Working People of Bethnal Green.
" MY FRIENDS, Nearly a year has now passed since my
appointment to the Bishopric of visited Bethnal
London,
Green, and heard much
and though I have
of its churches, no
opportunity has as yet been given me of meeting many of you in
the House of God or elsewhere. I now propose, if God will, to
begin next Sunday evening a course of special services, to be
continued till Christmas, in which I trust we may meet each
other. Let me affectionately beg of you to give me the oppor
tunity of thus joining with you in worship, and to come, that you
may hear the message which I and the other clergy who will
assist me are commissioned to deliver to you on Christ s behalf,
in preparation for the approaching season of Christmas. Believe
me to be, my friends, your faithful servant in Jesus Christ,
"
A. C. LONDON.
"LONDON HOUSE, iy/// Nov. 1857."