At that time the religious life of England was at a very low ebb; ministerial neglect was the rule rather than the exception, and the conduct of the clergy generally was not regulated by any very high standard of morality or excellence. Among the changes that have been wrought in our national institutions during the present century none have been more remarkable than those in the Church--not in its abstract constitution, but in the character and conduct of its ministers. The clerical "lights of other days" shone but dimly. Those who resided upon their benefices were content to spend their days in an easy hand-in-glove kind of association with their people, but seldom or never rose above the ordinary routine of the stated services of the Church. With the wise man they believed that "in much study is a weariness of the flesh," and to avoid that "weariness" they were wont to give more time to the foxes than to the Fathers. The typical clergyman of eighty years ago preferred conviviality to controversy; he was more concerned about his pigs than his preaching, and dreaded distemper in his herd a great deal more than he did dissent in his flock. Alderley was no exception to the general condition of the country, and many are the stories of clerical shortcomings that still linger in the memory of the older inhabitants. Rector Carr had made it his boast that he "never set a foot in a sick person's cottage," and it is related that when service was held in the church "the clerk used to go to the churchyard stile to see whether there were any more coming to church, for there were seldom enough to make a congregation." A parish which had remained so long in a state of spiritual torpor presented many difficulties to a new comer filled with a desire to promote the well-being of his people, and whose creed was-- Of hope, and virtue, and affection full. Surrounded by so much ignorance and indifference the enthusiasm of his fervent spirit was enkindled, and his ardent nature, combined with his strong sense of duty, acted as an incentive, and increased the desire to minister to the wants, both temporal and spiritual, of his flock, and faithfully to fulfil the sacred trust committed to him in his parochial cure. But those among whom he was called to minister were untaught in the first rudiments of the Christian faith, and upon ground so unprepared it was clear that the seed of the Word read and preached in the church, and the services of the liturgy, however reverently said or sung, could profit little, and that it was only by clothing his thoughts in language suited to their capacity--by giving in the plainest words such simple instruction as should touch their hearts, and by a kindly sympathy in all their concerns that he could hope to become "a father and a leader" to his hitherto neglected parishioners, and sustain among them a higher standard of conduct than was then common among an agricultural population. To be, in short--