Untitled - Electric Scotland

262 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. XL
with a view in most cases to the ultimate formation of
new parishes. This organisation, the first of its kind, has
been the precursor of many others, more or less like it, in
the various English Dioceses ; and it is at this moment,
after more than thirty years of vigorous though unob
trusive work, employing some twenty-eight missionary
clergymen in London, and has an income of about .6000
a year.
It would be tedious to recount in detail the various
evangelistic efforts, sometimes combined, sometimes iso
lated, to which the Bishop gave his encouragement in
those early years.
"
I wish to be very explicit," he said in his primary Charge,
"as to the general principle I have followed in permitting or
sanctioning these various efforts. . . . When persons have come
to me to propose any work of Christian usefulness in the diocese,
which has commended itself to the hearty approval of any con
siderable number of earnest and honest members of our Church
if it has seemed to me to aim, on the whole, at good ends, and
to be undertaken zealously and in good faith, and to have some
fair prospect of advancing Christ s work, I have not hesitated to
give my sanction to it, though its arrangements and mode of
action might be very different from what I should myself have
suggested. ... I have thought that it was the duty of my office
to present no obstacle to the fair development of each man s
zeal, provided I believed him sincerely desirous of dedicating it
to the service of the Church,
in which I am intrusted with
authority ; and if persons, differing widely from myself, through
respect for my office, have thus requested me to allow them to
put themselves under my protection, and professed their willing
ness in turn to have their peculiarities restrained by my authority,
I have not thought myself at liberty to decline. I believe this
to be the spirit of St. Paul s rule. . . . This Metropolitan
Diocese is a world in itself, and its schemes of Christian useful
ness must suit all tastes. Let all zealous efforts, honestly under
taken with the view of advancing our Church s means of
reaching souls, be fairly tried. Properly watched and guarded,
they will soon show whether or not they are likely to advance