y Castle, and yet that
quarter of a mile Hurd always travelled in his episcopal coach, with his
servants in full-dress liveries; and when he used to go from Worcester
to Bristol Hot Wells, he never moved without a train of twelve
servants.' Hurd has left us a very short memoir of his own life; but
short as the memoir is, it gives us a curious insight into one side of
his character. The whole account is compressed into twenty-six pages,
and consists for the most part merely of a bare recital of the chief
events of his life. But one day--one memorable day to be marked with the
whitest of white chalk--is described at full length. Out of the
twenty-six pages, no less than six are devoted to the description of a
visit with which the King honoured him at Hartlebury, when 'no
accident,' we are glad to learn, 'of any kind interrupted the mutual
satisfaction which was given and received on the occasion.'

It has been already observed that the Church interest formed a most
important element in the reckoning of statesmen of this century; and the
extent to which the clergy were mixed up with the politics of the day
must, under the circumstances, be reckoned among the Church abuses of
the period. Not, of course, that this is in itself an evil. On the
contrary, it would be distinctly a misfortune, both to the State and to
the Church, if the clergy of a Church constituted like our own were to
abstain altogether from taking any part in politics. It could hardly
fail to be a loss to the State if a large and presumably intelligent
class stood entirely aloof from its affairs. And the clergy themselves
by so doing would be both forfeiting a right and neglecting a duty. As
citizens who have an equal stake with the laity in the interests of the
country, they clearly enjoy the right to have a voice in the conduct of
its affairs. And as Christians they have a positive duty incumbent upon
them to use the influence they possess in this, as in every other
relation of life, for the cause of Christianity. But with this right and
this duty there is also a danger lest those, whose chief concern ought
to be with higher objects, should become overmuch entangled with the
affairs of this life; and a danger also lest men whose training is, as a
rule, not adapted to make them good men of business, should throw their
influence into the wrong scale. In so far, but only in so far as the
clergy fell into one or the other of these snares, can the political
Chur