sent to
a form of Episcopal ordination if it did not suggest any invalidity in
previous orders. Archbishop Herring was then consulted. The Primate had
already had a long conversation with Doddridge on the subject, and had
fallen in with Doddridge's suggestion, that, as a previous step, an
occasional interchange of pulpits between Churchmen and Dissenters might
be desirable. He thought comprehension 'a very good thing;' he wished it
with all his heart, and considered that there was some hope of its
success. He believed most of the bishops agreed with him in these
opinions.

No practical results ensued upon these conversations. They are
interesting, and to some extent they were characteristic of the time. It
is not known whether Herring and his brethren on the Episcopal bench
suggested any practical measure of the kind to the Ministry then in
power. If they had done so, the suggestion would have met with no
response. 'I can tell you,' said Warburton, 'of certain science, that
not the least alteration will be made in the Ecclesiastical system. The
present ministers were bred up under, and act entirely on, the maxims of
the last. And one of the principal of theirs was, Not to stir what is at
rest.'[378] Pelham was a true disciple of Sir Robert Walpole, without
his talent and without his courage--a man whose main political object
was to glide quietly with the stream, and who trembled at the smallest
eddies.[379] He was the last man to give a moment's countenance to any
such scheme, if it were not loudly called for by a large or powerful
section of the community. This was far from being the case. Indifference
was too much the prevailing spirit of the age to allow more than a very
negative kind of public feeling in such a matter. A carefully planned
measure, not too suggestive of any considerable change, would have been
acquiesced in by many, but enthusiastically welcomed by very few, while
beyond doubt there would have been much vehement opposition to it.

Or, if circumstances had been somewhat different, and Herring and
Sherlock, Doddridge and Chandler, had seen their plans extensively
advocated, and carried triumphantly through Parliament, the result would
in all probability have been a disappointing one. It would infallibly
have been a slipshod comprehension. Carelessness and indifference would
have had a large share in promoting it; relaxation, greater than even
then existed, of the order of the Church, would have been a