etation on the
seven loaves, or the two small fishes. I only ask you to accept the
plain moral practical lesson which the words convey.--

Use the means which you have already, however few and weak they
seem. If Christ be among you, as he is indeed, he will bless them,
and multiply them you know not how.

Use the means which you have; though they may seem to you
inadequate, though they may seem to the world antiquated, and
decrepit, try them. They need not depart from us, these masses, to
seek spiritual food, they know not where, if we have but faith. Let
us give them what we have; the organization of the Church of
England, and the teaching of the Church of England.

The organization of the Church. Not merely its Parochial system,
but its Diocesan system. In London, more than in any part of
England, the Diocesan system is valuable. A London parish is not
like a country one, a self-dependent, corporate body, made up of
residents of every rank, capable of providing for the physical and
spiritual wants of its own stationary population. In London,
population fluctuates rapidly, sometimes rolling away from one
quarter, always developing itself in fresh quarters; in London all
ranks do not dwell side by side within sight and sound of each
other: but the rich and the poor, the employed and the unemployed,
dwell apart, work apart, and are but too often out of sight, out of
mind. These, and many other reasons, make it impossible for the
mere parochial system to bring out the zeal and the liberality of
London Churchmen. If they are to realize their unity and their
strength, they must do so not as members of a Parish, but of a
Diocese; their Bishop must be to them the sign that they are one
body; their good works must be organized more and more under him,
and round him. This is no new theory of mine; it is a historic law.
The Priest for the village, the Bishop for the city, has been the
natural and necessary organization of the Church in every age; and
it was in strict accordance with this historic law, that the London
Diocesan Board of Education was founded in 1846, not to override the
parochial system, but to do for it what it cannot, in a great city,
do for itself; to establish elementary schools (and now I am happy
to say, evening schools also) in parishes which were too poor to
furnish them for themselves. I, as the son of a London Rector, can
bear my testimony to the excellent working of that Board; and it i