Untitled - Electric Scotland

1857-59] HARD WORK 269
questions (the incidence of Church rates for example) are
now of merely antiquarian importance. Others, such as
the City Churches problem,
remain still unsolved-
perhaps insoluble, considering how various are the con
ditions to be satisfied. But on each and all of these
questions old or new he gave abundant food for
thought, and the Charge retains its practical interest to
this hour.
The effort exhausted him completely, and he went to
Brighton to recruit. There, six days later, his diary has
the following :
"Now. 23, 1858.- -This day two years I was consecrated
Bishop of London. God s mercy has been great since then.
Health : strength : the society of my wife and my boy, with
our dear little L. : a daily increasing interest in my work. I
would fain hope that by God s blessing I have done somewhat
to make this Church more truly the Church of the nation.
Lord, pardon my great shortcomings."
The years that immediately followed were not, so far
as the Diocese was concerned, eventful, though they were
full of unremitting work. The diaries give evidence of
his anxiety an anxiety inspired by frequent warnings of
ill-health to strengthen the broad foundations he had
laid, and to arrange the plans of future effort. Such
entries as the following occur more than once :-
FULHAM, Sunday Evening, 2Qth July 1862. To-day and
yesterday I have been again laid up. Very unpleasant symp
toms :
fainting and the like. Obliged to stay in bed all yester
day, and to get the Bishop of Worcester to preach for me to-day.
It is good for me to have the nearness of death thus brought
before me. I trust, if God is pleased to call me, I am . . .
ready.
O God, watch over me this night, and if it be Thy good pleasure
let this illness pass. But Thou knowest what is best for us, for
my wife, my darling children. I place them, O Lord, in Thy
hands : keep^ them, I beseech Thee. I have had, as usual, a