ined that to create chief pastors without a
considerable endowment would serve to bring them into contempt; whereas
to many minds, that very wealth and station was an absolute stumbling-
block. However, a beginning was made, and a year after Henry Martyn's
death, in 1814, the first of the Colonial Bishops of England was
appointed, namely, Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, the son of a Derbyshire
clergyman, who had been educated at Christ's Hospital, and Pembroke
College, Cambridge, and had since been known as an excellent Greek
scholar, and an active clergyman in the diocese of Lincoln. Thence he
removed to the rectory of St. Pancras, London, where he strove hard to
accomplish the building of a new church, but could not succeed, such was
the dead indifference of the period. He was also Archdeacon of
Huntingdon, and one of a firmly compacted body of friends who were doing
much in a resolute though quiet way for the awakening of the nation from
its apathy towards religion. Joshua Watson, a merchant, might be
regarded as the lay-manager and leader, as having more leisure, and more
habit of business than the clergy, with and for whom he worked. This is
no place for detailing their home labours, but it may be well to mention
that to their exertions we owe the National Society for the education of
the poor, and likewise that edition of the Holy Scriptures, with notes,
which is commonly known as Mant's Bible. They were the chief managers at
that time of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and when, in
1813, a Danish missionary was sent out by that Society to take charge of
the congregations left by Schwartz and his colleagues, it was Archdeacon
Middleton who was selected to deliver a charge to him. It was a very
powerful and impressive speech, and perhaps occasioned Dr. Tomline,
Bishop of Lincoln, to recommend the speaker to the Earl of
Buckinghamshire for the bishopric created the next year.

The office would be, humanly speaking, most trying, laborious and
perplexing, and neither Archdeacon Middleton's age (forty-five) nor his
habits inclined to enthusiasm. He shrank from it at first, then
"suspected," as he says, "that I had yielded to some unmanly
considerations," and decided that it was his duty to accept the charge as
a call from his Master. He was consecrated in the chapel at Lambeth, by
Archbishop Manners Sutton, with the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and
Salisbury assisting. The sermon was preached by Dr. Re