s large private fortune. His
name is now like "ointment poured forth" among the inhabitants of Bath,
Clifton, Bradford, and other places. The Pastoral Aid Society was
founded in 1836, and by its lay and clerical employees, is now
ministering to the spiritual wants of over three millions of souls. The
Low Churchmen have also established, in needy localities, Sunday
Schools, Infant Schools, Lending Libraries, Benefit Societies, Clothing
Clubs, and Circles of Scripture Readers. From the ranks of this party
have arisen devout and zealous preachers, who, without any great natural
endowments, have given their hearts to the work of saving souls.
Hamilton Forsyth, Spencer Thornton, and Henry Fox,--the follower of
Henry Martyn to Southern India,--are names which will ever adorn the
history of the Church of England.[201]

At the present time the Low Church is leading the van within the
Establishment, in all those movements which have the stamp of true
piety. It is seeking out the abandoned and homeless wretches in the
darkest sinks of London, reading the Bible to them, clothing, finding
work, and training them to self-respect. Some of its clergy are among
the most gifted and influential in Great Britain, whether at the
editor's table, in the pulpit, or on the platform. The lofty position
they have lately taken against the inroads of Rationalism entitles them
to the thanks and admiration of Christendom.

Within the Low Church there are two subdivisions. The first is the
Recordite party, so called from its organ. It intensifies the doctrines
of the Low Church; on justification by faith it builds its view of the
worthlessness of morality; on conversion by grace its predestinarian
fatalism; and on the supremacy of Scripture its dogma of verbal
inspiration. It holds strong Biblical views on the sanctity of the
Sabbath, and both by the pulpit and the press, opposes the
secularization of the Lord's day. The other party is sneeringly called
the "Low and Slow," and corresponds with a similar faction within the
High Church which enjoys the sobriquet of the "High and Dry."

After the evangelical movement had fully taken root there arose an
antagonistic tendency; it was the old Sacramentalist party re-asserting
itself. Oxford arrayed itself against Cambridge. The views of Laud had
always found favor in the former seat of learning, and their adherents
felt that the time had now come for their vigorous revival. They
directed their oppositio