A Parish Anatomized " Can you " (ran the twentieth
of twenty-three questions circulated one hundred years ago by Bishop Wilberforce to the clergy of Oxfordshire) " mention anything which specially impedes your own ministry or the welfare of the Church around you? " " 1 can, but not a remedy," darkly replied the Rector of Bletchingdon. Many of his colleagues either said " No " or did not answer this question at all. Those who did mostly cited drink, Dissent, or the lack of schools as the principal impediments; one or two mentioned Mormonism, and only the Vicar of Nettlebed had the courage to put his troubles down to " the smallness of my income." The most full-blooded diagnosis came from the Rev. Richard Meux Benson, at Cowley. The chief impediments, he wrote, " seem to me to be: 1. Want of heartiness in any religious purpose, in many cases amounting to positive infidelity. 2. Strongly rooted prejudices in the better class of Church people. 3. unusual ignorance pervading all classes. 4. Pride and dress in the upper class. 5. Lawlessness and self-willed idleness in the lower. 6. Selfishness in all and niggardliness especially in the upper. 7., Loose habits produced by the university cricket grounds, etc. 8. Immorality connected with the university. 9. Immorality arising from want of proper cottage-morn. 10. Low loitering sports arising from ignorance. A rural police " (concluded this much-harassed man, who one would like to believe was educated at Cambridge) " is greatly needed."
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