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378 YORK.
From the reports sent in by the suffragan bishops
of the province/ we gather that the clergy generally
must have been of a very low stamp. The Bishop
of Sodor and Man says that reading the service
distinctly is as much as most of the Isle of Man
clergy can do. They have had no opportunity of
obtaining a learned education. They cannot preach,
so he had ordered them to read the Homilies, and
had required every parish to provide a copy. On St.
John Baptist's day he found that gross superstitions
were practised. What their nature was we are not
informed, but he had forbidden them and ordered
the services of the Church and sermons in their
stead. Bishop Potter, of Carlisle, reports general
conformity in his diocese, but states that the wretched
stipends attached to most of the benefices oblige him
to admit mean scholars to the diaconate, rather than
allow the people to be utterly mthout divine service
and he complains much of the supineness of the
churchwardens, who never present absentees from
church, and of the magistrates, who never punish
them. Bishop Morton, of Durham, says that he
can hardly procure a sufficient number of competent
ministers to lecture in the market towns. Bridgeman,
the Bishop of Chester, gives the most satisfactory
account. He had brought most of the churches
in his diocese to a state of uniformity and decenc)', in
which he had essential help from the laity, who had
most cheerfully contributed many thousand pounds.
The king spent some time in York on several
» S. r. Dom. Charles I. cccxiv., 85.