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412 YORK.
Since the commencement of the present century,
many public measures have been passed, affecting, in
a greater or lesser degree, the spiritual and material
interests of the Church of England. Foremost amongst
these was the Repeal of the Test Act in 1828, which
abolished, we may hope, for ever, the degrading law
which made participation in the holiest rite of the
Church a passport to the exercise of civil functions
and temporal offices. Then followed the Statutes
which did away with the holding of benefices in
plurality. They have given, step by step, resident
incumbents to parishes where, in numberless cases,
no holder of the benefice had resided within the
memory of man. Many a parish in this great diocese
was thus circumstanced ; but a vast change for the
better has been wrought in that respect, affording an
augury of lasting good as the fruit of those wise
enactments.
The most important act, peculiarly affecting the
diocese of York, was that which gave effect to the
recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
for its division. A new see was founded at Ripon in
1836, and a large district placed under the rule of
its bishop, containing the important towns of Leeds,
Halifax, Bradford, Wakefield, and others, and the
wide tract of country comprised within the limits of
the old Archdeaconry of Richmond. On the like
recommendation the county. of Nottingham was dissevered
from the diocese and province of York, and
given to the diocese of Lincoln. This took full effect
in 1841.
Dr. Longley, afterwards successively Bishop of