Untitled - Electric Scotland

i857-59] THE BISHOP S PRIMARY CHARGE 265
arranged for simultaneous sermons on the subject in almost
all the London churches, upon a particular Sunday, and
he himself undertook the responsibility of pressing upon
the great Omnibus Companies of London, in a remark
able letter which was made public at the time, the duty of
a relaxation of the hours of Sunday
labour for their
servants.
On November 17, 1858, just two years after his conse
cration to the See, he delivered in St. Paul s Cathedral his
primary Charge to which more than one allusion has been
already made. That Charge remains, in the memory of all
who knew him, one of the greatest achievements of his
life. It practically inaugurated a new order of Episcopal
utterances, and, for a few days at least, all London sang
his praises. Even the outward delivery of the Charge
was a remarkable feat. For nearly five hours he held
the attention of his hearers, under the dome of St. Paul s,
his steady, sonorous voice reaching every ear from the
beginning to the end. Eye-witnesses have often described
how the short November day sank into twilight, then into
earnest tones he went
darkness, and still, in clear, quiet,
on, the only object visible in the great building (for the
dome was then unlighted), turning his pages by the light
desk from which
of two small lamps upon the temporary
he spoke.
Rightly to estimate the significance of this Charge,
it is
only necessary to turn, in an Ecclesiastical Library, to a
volume of the Episcopal Charges which had till then been
usual. With a few noteworthy exceptions, 1
they were
stilted, conventional, and jejune to the last degree ; and,
so far as the average layman was concerned, they might
1
Among the exceptions were such Charges as those of Bishop Phillpotts,
Bishop Wilberforce, Bishop Thirlwall. Each of these had its own vigor
ous characteristics, but not one of them was in any way similar either in
matter or manner to this Charge of Bishop Tait.