Untitled - Electric Scotland

1863-67] BISHOP OF LONDON S FUND 44 7
At the head of the list stood the provision of missionary
clergy to work in crowded parishes ; the building of
churches being the last of the nine objects.
The response to this bold appeal was such as to amaze
and silence the opponents of the plan. The first sub
scription list amounted to ^60,000. Before six months
had passed the sum was ; 94,000, and in March 1864,
-nine months, that is, after the issue of his letter,-
the Bishop was able to announce the actual receipt of
;" 100,456, 135. 6d., and the promise of ^9 2,000 more.
It would be out of place to recount here in detail the
subsequent progress of the Bishop
of London s fund. 1
Bishop Tait was never tired of expressing his obligation
to the great body of laymen who had from the first
administered its grants :
"
It has required," he said in his third diocesan Charge, "such
an amount of patient and laborious attention, not only to the
general condition of the diocese, but to the minute details of its
parishes, and such an amount of communication, oral and
written, with incumbents and others, as would fully employ the
energies of the whole staff of any great public office. . . . To the
laymen who have thus aided us the thanks of all of us, the clergy,
are especially due. Men of all ranks, with a thousand other
claims, have made time to work for us diligently, day by day, in
the office, and have visited all parts of the diocese, that, by
personal inspection of poverty-stricken districts, and personal in
tercourse with incumbents and other residents, they might better
understand what it was wise to undertake in each neighbourhood."
He used always to maintain in later years that, great
mission rooms or school churches; 7. endowment of old or new districts;
8. endowment of curacies ; 9. building of churches.
1
When, in 1873, tne decennial period, which was originally intended to
be the limit of the fund s duration, came to an end, it was reconstructed by
Bishop Jackson as a permanent diocesan institution. It had then expended
,497,910, and its present income is about ^"23,000 a year. Two of the four
original trustees, Sir Walter Farquhar and Mr. John Murray, are still in
office.