Page:VCH London 1.djvu/442

A HISTORY OF LONDON charity school or to maintain services. ^ Depending upon rehgious fervour, the societies decayed during the i8th century until revived by the Evan- gelical school. But they naturally fostered an independent spirit which demanded strict clerical control, and this the Evangelical clergy could not give."* The result was that in 1800 a meeting of London clergymen could only regard the utility of the societies as doubtful.-" They again fell into decay until revived in 1847, with Bishop Blomfield's permission, as com- municants' gilds,^-^ which since then have become part of the organization of most London parishes. The societies for the Reformation of Manners arose about the same time as the religious societies, and by 1699 included bodies of householders, ministers, constables and justices of the peace, Dissenters as well as members of the Establishment, whose especial object it was to bring wrongdoers to justice. The methods employed were purely legal, with the result that by 1709 the societies had largely dwindled into factious clubs, and grown 'a trade to enrich little Knavish Informers of the meanest Rank..'"' It was from these small associations that the impulse arose which resulted in the great Church societies of the present day. The Society for the Pro- motion of Christian Knowledge was at once the earliest and most local of these. Founded in 1698, it included among its first members London mer- chants, barristers, men of leisure, and divines, of whom the most prominent was Dr. Bray, appointed to St. Botolph Aldgate in 1706, and one of the founders, in 1701, of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. It is impossible to speak here of the success of these organizations, or of their many younger associates ; from the first their work, though having its centre in London, has not been local, but almost world-wide. One of the most striking results of the religious movement of this time was the foundation of the charity schools, mainly supported by the private societies, and by collections made by the children after special sermons.^ The yearly service at St. Sepulchre's attended by the children and staffs of all the charity schools in London was in 17 14 one of the sights of the City."' Complaints of the abuses of pluralities and non-residence were frequent from the Restoration, especially in London,-^" where, at the close of the 17th century, forty-three incumbents of City churches had country livings, and two had country curacies."^ It was usual to hold London livings in plurality, but nearly all the influential clergy of the i8th and early 19th centuries were pluralists ; even Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of London, only accepted the living of St. Botolph Bishopsgate, the clear value of which was ^1,600 a year, on the understanding that he should retain his living of Chesterford, where the Bishop of London did not object to his passing some months of '" [Woodward] Acct. of SocUtiet for Reformation of Manners, 1 5 ; Woodward, Acct. of . . . Religious Societies, 23, 109. "* Overton, Engl. Ch. in 19M Cent. 292-3. *" Pratt, Eclectic Notes, 185 et seq. "« A. Blomfield, Mem. ofC. J. Blomfield, ii, 94. " [Woodward] Acct. of Societies for Reformation of Manners, 146! seq. ; Woodward, Acct. of. . . ReFigious Societies, 59 ; Swift, IVorks (ed. Scott), viii, 99. "' A Sunday Ramble in and about Lond. and IVestm. 37 ; McClure, A Chapter in Engl. Church Hist, iv, 18. '- Paterson, op. cit. 256. '*" Wharton, Defence of Pluralities, 7. "' Brief Acct. of Maintenance arising by Tithes, &c. (B.M. Pressmark 491, k, 4, no. 9). 354