work that was done, are conspicuous among the Church abuses
of the period. On the other side, fervency and vigour in preaching were
regarded with suspicion as bordering too nearly upon the habits of the
hated Puritans of the Commonwealth, and a dry, dull, moralising style of
sermon was the result. And, generally, this fear on both sides
engendered a certain timidity and obstructiveness and want of elasticity
which prevented the Church from incorporating into her system anything
which seemed to diverge one hair's breadth from the groove in which she
ran.

Again, the Church was an immense engine of political power. The most
able and popular statesmen could not afford to dispense with her aid.
The bench of bishops formed so compact a phalanx in the Upper House of
the Legislature, and the clergy could and did influence so many
elections into the Lower House, that the Church had necessarily to be
courted and favoured, often to the great detriment of her spiritual
character.

Nor, in touching upon the general causes which impaired the efficiency
of the Church during the eighteenth century, must we omit to notice the
want of all synodal action. There may be different opinions as to the
wisdom or otherwise of the indefinite prorogation of Convocation, as it
existed in the early years of the eighteenth century. That it was the
scene of unseemly disputes, and altogether a turbulent element in the
Constitution, when the Ministry of George I. thought good to prorogue it
_sine die_ in 1717, is not denied; but that the Church should be
deprived of the privilege, which every other religious body enjoyed, of
discussing in her own assembly her own affairs, was surely in itself an
evil. And we must not too hastily assume that she was not then in a
condition to discuss them profitably. The proceedings of the later
meetings of Convocation in the eighteenth century which are best known
are those which concerned subjects of violent altercation. But these
were by no means the only subjects suggested for discussion.[651] The
re-establishing and rendering useful the office of rural deans, the
regulating of marriage licences, the encouragement of charity schools,
the establishment of parochial libraries, the licentiousness of the
stage, protests against duelling, the want of sufficient church
accommodation, the work of Christian missions both to the heathen and
our own plantations--these and other thoroughly practical questions are
found among