hen it was quite sufficient to argue
against anything that it was a custom practised among the Dissenters.
The reader of Wilberforce's Life will remember how anxious was that good
man that the Dissenters should not take up the question of sending the
Gospel to India, as if they did he feared their activity would put a stop
to all Church action in the matter. It is not so now. The pressure of
public opinion, the dreadful mass of heathenism which had grown up while
the Church slumbered, the growing influence of Dissent, the increasing
spirituality of the clergy, the zeal and liberality of their people, have
in London completely altered the position of the Church of England.
Never were her services so well attended, never were her clergy more
useful than now. At the West-end the Church is the fashion. In the
East, where the poverty is too great to admit of the existence of a
church on Dissenting principles, the Church is in some parishes the only
place of worship, and the Church clergyman the only religious teacher. I
have heard of one parish where the utmost that the clergyman could get
for religious and charitable purposes from his wealthiest parishioners
was but ten shillings; and of another, where the clergyman spent five
hundred a year in charity. It is in these parts of London that the
Church is most useful, most successful, most untiring in its operations,
most lavish of its spiritual and temporal good. The laity give
munificently. For example, the Countess of Aberdeen gives three hundred
a year for the support of a clergyman in the East, who preaches in a
church built by Lord Haddo; the Marquis of Salisbury has subscribed
300_l._ for a similar purpose; and the clergy, whether vicars or curates,
devote themselves unremittingly to the performance of their sacred
duties. Under these circumstances they find themselves unequal to the
task, and appeal to the laity for help.

The Association of Lay Helpers for the Diocese of London was formed in
the year 1865, and "readers" have been admitted in the chapel of London
House with a form of service drawn up for the purpose in the form
following:--

John, by Divine permission, Bishop of London, to our beloved and
approved in Christ, A. B., Greeting: We do, by these presents, give
unto you our Commission to act as Reader in the parish of C, within
our Diocese and jurisdiction, on the nomination of the Rev. D. E.,
Rector [or Vicar] of the same, and