Diocese of Bath and Wells

“ Meanwhile he began to see his way clearer and to develop his line.
“Well, Lady Sunderbund,” he said, “I can assure you that I think you will be no small addition to the church life of Princhester. But I warn you this is a hard-working and exacting diocese. We shall take your money, all we can get of it, we shall take your time, we shall work you hard.”
“Wo'k me hard!” cried Lady Sunderbund with passion.
“We will, we will,” said the bishop in a tone that ignored her passionate note.
“I am sure Lady Sunderbund will be a great help to us,” said Lady Ella. “We want brightening. ”

“ And there she was, and the point was there were thousands and thousands and thousands of educated people like her who were dying to get through these old-fashioned symbols to the true faith that lay behind them. That they knew lay behind them. She didn't know if he had read “The Light under the Altar”?
“He's vicar of Wombash—in my diocese,” said the bishop with restraint.
“It's wonde'ful stuff,” said Lady Sunderbund. “It's spi'tually cold, but it's intellectually wonde'ful. But we want that with spi'tuality. We want it so badly. ”

“ Moreover, if it cleared other dioceses, and the priests in them personally, it would be no general answer, but leave a burden on the consciences of those who minister in the diocese of Canterbury. I will therefore make a further, and, I trust, a more complete reply. I say, that what I myself, and every priest among us, has subscribed to, is obedience to his bishop “in things lawful and honest.” Can this ever bind me to acquiesce in expunging an article of the Nicene creed? in not contending to the utmost against the heresy that our Church has no dogmatic teaching on baptism at all? ”

“ Broad in his sympathies, courageous in his outspeaking, and impetuous in his temperament, he oftentimes brought himself in conflict with those who were content with things as they had been, and in the earlier years of his episcopate he found his diocese anything but a bed of roses, for during the closing years of the long rule of his predecessor, Bishop Bathurst, Norwich had been a byword for laxity among the sees of [Pg 95] the English Church, a condition of things the new prelate could not endure. ”

“ Cross the Channel, and you will see another sight. Enter by the western door of the church of Llandaff, and right before your eyes stands the altar, raised aloft in fitting majesty. Below it, open to all eyes, is the Bishop on his throne, the clergy and singers in their stalls. The long nave is filled with the people, the faithful of the city and diocese. Nothing distinguishes worshippers of higher worldly position; nothing distinguishes the households of the dignitaries of the cathedral from their fellow Christians of lower degree. There is the church as it should be ”

“ He was elected bishop of Bath and Wells on the 23rd of January, 1275, but was not consecrated until Palm Sunday in that year [11] . He was even appointed to the see of Canterbury, (1272,) but the pope refused to confirm the election [12] , and the see remained consequently vacant for some years. ”

“ Hood had always evaded this question, and a number of strong-willed self-made men of wealth and influence, full of local patriotism and that competitive spirit which has made England what it is, already intensely irritated by Hood's prevarications, were resolved to pin his successor to an immediate decision. Of this the new bishop was unaware. Mindful of a bishop's constant need to travel, he was disposed to seek a home within easy reach of Pringle Junction, from which nearly every point in the diocese could be simply and easily reached. ”

“ In 1857, when he took priest's orders, he was presented by his college to the rectory of Swanswick, near Bath, which he retained till death. In 1871 he was appointed to the prebend of Wanstrow in Wells cathedral, and from 1873 to 1877 he was rural dean of Bath. ”

“ Bishop Kennion of Bath and Wells entered into an agreement to raise a sum of £31,000, the cost of the purchase; this was completed, and the site and buildings were formally transferred at a dedicatory service in 1909 to the Diocesan Trustees of Bath and Wells, who are to hold and manage the property according to a deed of trust. ”

“ It is a great misfortune to the Church of England that her dioceses, compared with the population, are so extensive and so few. It is impossible for our bishops to perform all their canonical duties, such as visiting annually every parish in the diocese, inspecting schools, Divine service, instruction, &c., besides baptizing, confirming, consecrating. ”

“ His realization of his diocese was a profound shock.
Only one hint had he had of what was coming. He had met during his season of congratulations Lord Gatling dining unusually at the Athenaeum. Lord Gatling and he did not talk frequently, but on this occasion the great racing peer came over to him. “You will feel like a cherub in a stokehole,” Lord Gatling had said....
“They used to heave lumps of slag at old Hood's gaiters,” said Lord Gatling.
“In London a bishop's a lord and a lark and nobody minds him,” said Lord Gatling, “but Princhester is different. It isn't used to bishops.... ”

“ The abbey began with a nunnery founded by King Osric in 676 and rose through a monastery founded later by King Offa to be an abbey in 1040, attached to the{53} bishopric of Wells; but it waited its final grandeur and glory from Bishop Oliver King, who while visiting Bath in 1499 saw in a dream angels ascending and descending by a ladder set between the throne of God and an olive-tree, wearing a crown, and heard a voice saying, “Let an Olive establish the crown, and a King restore the church.” ”

“ Another reason for dividing a diocese, and establishing a new see, has been recognized by the church as duly existing “if the sovereign should think fit to endow some principal village or town with the rank and privileges of a city” (Bingham, lib. xvii. c. 5) . But there are canons for the punishment of such as might induce the sovereign so to erect any town into a city, solely with the view of becoming bishop thereof. Nor could any diocese be divided without the consent of the primate.
In England an act of parliament is necessary for the creation of new dioceses. ”

“ The silence invited the bishop to speak.
“In the light of this vision, I see my church plainly for the little thing it is,” he said.
He wanted to be perfectly clear with the Angel and himself.
“This church of which I am a bishop is just a part of our poor human struggle, small and pitiful as one thinks of it here in the light of the advent of God's Kingdom, but very great, very great indeed, ancient and high and venerable, in comparison with me. But mostly it is human. It is most human. ”

“ It was the transference to the territorial sovereigns of modern Europe of the theocratic character of the Christian heads of the Roman world-empire; with the result that for the reformed Churches the unit of church organization was no longer the diocese, or the group of dioceses, but the Christian state. Thus in England the bishops, while retaining their potestas ordinis in virtue of their consecration as successors of the apostles, came to be regarded not as representing their dioceses in the state, but the state in their dioceses. ”

“ John’s Chapel, Pierrepoint Place, Bath, the title assumed by him being Bishop of Apollonia in the Archdiocese of Thessalonica. The newly created diocese embraced the twelve counties of Wales, with Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. His vicariate was very extensive and extremely impoverished. It included within it only nineteen chapels. Eleven of these belonging to Hereford and Monmouth, no more than eight in all appertained to the dozen Welsh counties. On the formation of the catholic hierarchy Brown was translated, on 29 Sept. 1850, to the newly constituted see of Newport and Menevia. ”

“ A public meeting in the Guildhall at Exeter and the testimonials that emanated from it proved how entirely the bishop had won his way. The clergy of the diocese, who had protested against his election in 1869, almost unanimously signed a memorial of regret at his departure. He was enthroned in St. Paul's in April 1885. He threw himself with his accustomed vigour into the work of the diocese and into all the great social questions of the day. In accordance with his views on self-government he introduced the plan of allowing the clergy to elect their own rural deans. ”

“ The population cannot be much, if at all, short of 3,000,000 of people, and though by the creation of the Bishopric Suffragan of Burnley, and with the help of an assistant Bishop, who is Vicar of Blackburn, the Bishop of Manchester is supplied with valuable assistance, there is a growing feeling, especially in the north and north-eastern parts of the Diocese, that more Diocesan Bishops are needed to bring the forces of Episcopacy to bear upon the operations of the National Church. ”

“ The life of Catholicism in England is evinced by its numerous associations. In every place where it has taken root, Catholics enrol themselves in societies, confraternities, or institutes for social, intellectual, and religious purposes. In no diocese do these flourish more than in that of Westminster. ”

“ In 1400 a majority of the chapters of Bath and Wells elected him at the royal request as their bishop, but Boniface IX provided another minister of Henry's, Richard Clifford, keeper of the privy seal, for the vacant see. A difficulty arose, although Clifford, at the king's command, declined to accept the illegal preferment. At last matters were settled by the death of the bishop of Worcester. Clifford was transferred to that see, and the pope now issued a provision appointing Bowet to Wells (19 Aug. 1401) . ”

“ During the last sixty years the church has strengthened its hold on the loyalty of the nation by its increased efficiency. Its bishops are laborious and active. Since 1876 the home episcopate has been increased by the creation of the dioceses of Truro, St Albans, Liverpool, Newcastle, Southwell, Wakefield, Bristol, Southwark and Birmingham, so that there are now (1910) thirty-seven diocesan bishops, aided by twenty-eight suffragan and eight assistant bishops, and a further subdivision of dioceses is contemplated. At no other time probably have the clergy been so industrious. ”

“ This wickedly uncharitable reference to his diocese ran all unchallenged through the bishop's mind. And others no less wicked followed it.
Once during his summer holidays in Florence he and Lady Ella had subscribed to an association for the protection of song-birds. He recalled this now with a mild wonder. It seemed to him that perhaps after all it was as well to let fruit-growers and Italians deal with singing-birds in their own way. Perhaps after all they had a wisdom....
He passed his hands over his face. The world after all is not made entirely for singing-birds ”

“ The Diocesan centre of Church work, in which the Bishop finds his seat and Altar in the Mother Church of his Diocese There he can be at the head of all kinds of Diocesan Societies which organize and carry out work in which all parishes share, but which they cannot themselves undertake. There he has his diocesan officers, canons, missioners, and lay-helpers. There, too, he is in his own church, which is his own in a sense that no pro-cathedral parish church can be. This is fortunately the ideal which our Cathedral Constitution, as laid down by Diocesan Statute, had in mind. ”

“ Meanwhile Lady Sunderbund had become a frequent worshipper in the cathedral, she was a figure as conspicuous in sombre Princhester as a bird of paradise would have been; common people stood outside her very very rich blue door on the chance of seeing her; she never missed an opportunity of hearing the bishop preach or speak, she wrote him several long and thoughtful letters with which he did not bother Lady Ella, she communicated persistently, and manifestly intended to become a very active worker in diocesan affairs. ”

“ England, like every other country at the same period, was afflicted with the terrible evils resulting from the appropriation of parishes by laymen and by religious establishments, a system which made it impossible for a bishop to govern his diocese properly, from the non-residence of both bishops and higher clergy, and from the plurality of benefices, which meant that a person might be permitted to hold two or more benefices to which the care of souls was attached, thereby rending impossible the proper discharge of pastoral duties. ”

“ One day he realized that indeed the whole flood and tumult of the war would be going on almost exactly as it was going on now if there had been neither cathedral nor bishop in Princhester. It came to him that if archbishops were rolled into patriarchs and patriarchs into archbishops, it would matter scarcely more in the world process that was afoot than if two men shook hands while their house was afire. At times all of us have inappropriate thoughts. ”

“ The church of John and Robert was of course built in the Romanesque style with round arches, and in that particular variety of Romanesque which had been imported by Eadward the Confessor from Normandy into England, and which we therefore call the Norman style. But the present church of Bath is one of the latest examples of our latest English Gothic, and of that special variety of it which forms the local Perpendicular style of Somersetshire. Moreover the Romanesque church was very much larger than the present one, which covers the site of its nave only. ”