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My Parochial Visitations are indeed for the present completed; but, through the Rural Deans, I shall keep up a hardly less close and particular knowledge of the progress of your repairs. And I shall be at all times ready to renew my visits in person, and to lend the best guidance and advice I can in all matters belonging to your office. All other particulars I will reserve for the letter which I hope soon to address to you.
My Reverend Brethren, this is now the third year that I have spoken in your hearing upon the exterior system of the Church, and upon the minor points of internal order and arrangement. You are aware also that much of my time in the intervals between these public visitations has been bestowed on particulars of this sort. It seems, therefore, almost due to you and not less to myself to explain in a few words the reason why these details have occupied so much of my attention. I may have run the risk of seeming to you to be formal, and to be punctiliously dwelling on the outer side and ceremonial of religion. Had I followed my own inclinations I should not have run any such risk. My own wishes would have led me, I trust, to the inner realities of the Church; and I can truly say that the mechanical nature of this part of my official duty has been but a shallow source of pleasure to me. If it were right to speak more freely of that which is a part of duty, I should say more. I must,
