Untitled - Electric Scotland

RECEPTION OF THE CHARGE 267
things condemned, marked bygone Charges delivered in the
same Cathedral, many of the evils of to-day might never have
been."
Among the letters which he immediately received from
men of weight was the following from the aged Arch
bishop Whately, who had known him years before in his
undergraduate days at Oxford :
" MY
The ArchbisJiop of Dublin to the Bishop of London.
"DUBLIN, 30 Nov. 1858.
DEAR LORD, I have delayed acknowledging the excel
lent Charge which your Lordship kindly sent me, till I could
present a little tract containing the substance of two of mine.
"Your Lordship s Charge presents a striking contrast as
all must admit to the prevailing idea of an Episcopal Charge,
viz., an elaborate and studied inanity, carefully avoiding every
thing that might be displeasing to any of the clergy, and accord
ingly keeping clear of everything on which there may be two
opinions among them ; thence dealing only in vague and barren
generalities, as unprofitable as they are unobjectionable.
"
I am glad to see a Bishop (especially of the greatest Diocese
of the world, and which I have always thought ought to be made
two) determined to show that he has at least something to say,
and is resolved to say it. Believe me to be, your Lordship s
faithfully,
RD. DUBLIN."
The controversial portions of the Charge have been
already referred to, but it was not to these that the main
interest attached. It was rather to the record and the
promise of the new and larger work by which he was
trying, in the spirit not less of a Christian statesman than
of an Ecclesiastic, to throw fresh life into the Church of
England, to popularise it, and to make it altogether
national. He called attention, in the very forefront of his
Charge, to the position and duties assigned to him in the