scattered shepherds and small farmers, have been colonized, within living memory, by an active and energetic population; and numerous iron-works, each supporting from 2000 to 10,000 persons, occupy situations where a few mountain sheep browsed undisturbed at the close of the last century. Men were lately alive who recollected Merthyr a small hamlet of some half dozen cottages, and that parish now numbers 50,000 persons. The population of the entire diocese, which was only 95,549 in 1801, amounted in 1841 to 259,852, and now exceeds 300,000. This population is most unequally distributed, so that four-fifths of the increase, or 160,000 persons, have been added to eight mountain parishes and two shipping ports, and in some parishes the increase has been forty-fold in fifty years.

The iron works, collieries, and shipping ports, around which this population has been congregated, may be regarded as colonies, where the native population is outnumbered by immigrants from England, Ireland, and Scotland, speaking a language strange to the original inhabitants, and requiring the ministrations of religion in a different tongue from that spoken by the native race. Whilst the duties of the church have increased with a rapidity of which there are but few other examples, the revenues of the clergy have been wholly inadequate to meet the wants thus rapidly created: and there have been other hindrances to the extension of the ministrations of the church, which must be now described.

The see of Llandaff was occupied, from 1782 to 1816 by Bishop Watson, from 1816 to 1819 by Bishop Marsh, from 1819 to 1826 by Bishop Van Mildert, and it was then held for a short period by Bishop Sumner, on whose translation to Winchester, in 1827, Dr. Copleston was consecrated bishop of Llandaff. From the time of Bishop Kitchen, in the reign of Elizabeth, until subsequent to the death of Bishop Copleston, there was no episcopal residence, and neither Bishop Watson nor Bishop Marsh lived in the diocese.

In 1821, Bishop Van Mildert rented a house near Abergavenny, and from that time the successive bishops of Llandaff resided, during a portion of every year, within the limits of the see, in private houses provided at their own cost.

The patronage at the disposal of the bishop is inconsiderable; and, by a table appended to the first Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, I am enabled to supply the following estimate of the revenues of the clergy at the time of the appointment of Bishop Copleston:

Net income of bishopric

£924

all the members of the chapter 690 Average income of parochial benefices .

.

(Sixty-four being of less value than £100 a year.)

177

The ecclesiastical organization of the Welsh sees had been long very imperfect, and in none was the system more defective than in the diocese of Llandaff. Rural deans did not exist until the time of Bishop Marsh, but those useful clerical superintendents were established throughout the diocese by that prelate. Although an archdeacon existed, his office was but a name, and he neither held visitations, nor discharged the other archidiaconal duties. Some of the duties of archdeacon were vested in the chancellor of the diocese, by whom churchwardens were admitted, and to whom the oversight of the fabric of the churches was entrusted. There was no dean until 1840, when it was enacted that the archdeacon should be also dean, an arrangement which continued until the archdeaconry was separated from the deanery by an order in council, made November 10th, 1843; and on the 31st of January, 1844, a second archdeaconry was founded, consisting of the whole of the county of Monmouth.

When Bishop Copleston's connexion with the see began, many of those edifices, which had been erected and endowed for the worship of God, presented an appearance of mean

ness and dilapidation which but ill corresponded with the holy purposes to which they had been consecrated; and whilst the private dwellings of churchmen were often characterized by a growing stateliness and beauty, the houses of God presented few indications of gratitude to Him, from whom so large an amount of temporal prosperity had proceeded. The bishop appealed in terms of affectionate earnestness to the owners of property to provide out of their abundance for the spiritual wants of their poorer brethren, if they would be regarded as real members of the church of Christ.

He lived to witness practical indications of improved feeling, in the erection of several district churches, in the rebuilding of very many parish churches, and the complete reparation of many others, and in the restoration of numerous sacred edifices to a state of propriety and comeliness. Some progress also was made in the restoration of the cathedral church from its decayed and almost ruinous condition.*

In order to promote the erection and restoration of churches, the bishop encouraged the formation of a Diocesan Church Building Society, and subscribed 1001. yearly to its funds, and this was in addition to liberal contributions in aid of each separate work of church-building and church-restoring undertaken in the diocese. The advantages which have been conferred on the diocese, by that society, during the short period which it has existed, have not been limited to the direct aid contributed from its funds; and it appears, by the fifth annual report, published during the last year, that the grants of the society, either paid or promised, amount in the archdeaconry

* Amongst the churches and chapels built may be enumerated Tredegar, Rhymney, St. David's, (Merthyr,) St. Paul's, (Newport,) Trinity, (Abergavenny,) Glyntaff, St. Mary's, (Cardiff,) Beaufort, Abersychen Pontnewynydd, Lanvair, (Llantillio Cresseny,) Devauden, Govilon, Glascoed, Skewen, and Resolven.

of Llandaff to 514l. 10s., to meet an aggregate outlay of 8855l. 48.; and in the archdeaconry of Monmouth, to 4957. 168., to meet an aggregate outlay of 13,323l. 118.

In the Charge delivered by Bishop Van Mildert in 1821, the deficiency of glebe-houses was much lamented, and it was stated that two-thirds of the livings had no glebehouses whatever; and of those which had any existence, many were so mean and unimprovable, as to afford but too good a plea for non-residence. Bishop Sumner complained, in 1827, that in that part of the diocese which was in Glamorganshire, forty-five parishes only had glebehouses, whilst sixty-two had none; and in Monmouthshire, fifty-five parishes only had, and seventy-two had not glebehouses; and of those which existed, many were small farmhouses, some were cottages, and not a few were so unfavourably situated, from various causes, as to be unfit for residence. Bishop Copleston early manifested his resolution to apply all lawful and practicable means to the correction of an evil, which presented so frequent a hindrance to the residence of a clergyman within his parish, and thus deprived the inhabitants of that effective pastoral superintendence, on which the influence and usefulness of the church so materially depend.

In Charges delivered by the bishop in 1845 and in 1848, he described the progress which had been made in what concerned the material provision for religion, and instanced, as evidence of such progress, fifty-three parsonagehouses completed, and five more about to be undertaken, in parishes which before were either wholly destitute, or inadequately supplied with that provision; and in reviewing this improved condition of the church in that particular, he directed attention to the difficulties of procuring residences to be built upon benefices, the whole income of which only furnished a bare subsistence, or was insufficient for the decent support of a clergyman.

On the appointment of the present Archdeacon of Llandaff, in the year 1843, the number of glebe-houses occupied within that archdeaconry, whether by the incumbent or his curate, was twenty-seven only, and although several residences have been since provided,-in some instances by the restoration of decayed dwellings, in others, by the erection of new houses,-there is yet a great deficiency in that archdeaconry of residences for the clergy. Thus, for ninety-one benefices, there are only thirty-eight glebe-houses fit for habitation; in fourteen benefices the glebe-houses are unfit for residence, and in thirty-nine there are no glebehouses of any description.

In the archdeaconry of Monmouth there are now one hundred and thirty-one benefices, including several additional districts, constituted during the late episcopate. In 1831, there were fifty-three glebe-houses, of which twentytwo were unfit, and thirty-one fit for residence: and if, to the sixty-three benefices which were then without glebe houses, be added the twenty-two houses which were unfit for the residence of a clergyman, it will appear that of one hundred and sixteen benefices there were eighty-five without glebe-houses. Twenty-four residences have been provided since that time, some of which are restorations of old dwellings, and some are entirely new, and the number of glebe-houses is now sixty-eight, of which fifty-five are fit, and thirteen unfit for residence. But there remain sixty-three benefices without glebe-houses, and if to these be added thirteen houses unfit for residence, it will be seen that, of one hundred and thirty-one benefices, seventy-six, or more than one-half, are without adequate residences, including in that number those new districts for which glebe-houses have not been provided. We may, however, regard fifty-five residences for one hundred and thirty-one benefices as a more satisfactory proportion than thirty-one residences for