Shall we omit, after this enumeration, to notice the singular fact that _Discipline_ still lingered on,--even the discipline of _public penance_,--until within the memory of aged persons yet living? Merchants in the city of London wore mourning during Lent, within the present century. It is only within the last thirty years that formulæ expressive of reliance on the Divine blessing have been expunged from bills-of-lading, and similar printed documents. In the beginning of the period discoursed of by Mr. Pattison, (viz. in the year 1714,) the excellent Robert Nelson, in "An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate," proposed as objects for the generosity of the affluent, such institutions as the following:--"the creating of Charity Schools,"--of "Parochial Libraries in the meanly endowed Cures throughout England,"--of "a superior School for training up Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses,"--and of "Colleges or Seminaries for the Candidates of Holy Orders." He suggested that there should be "Houses of Hospitality for entertaining Strangers;" "Suffragan Bishops, both at home and in the Western Plantations;" "Colleges for receiving Converts from Popery." Some of Nelson's suggestions read like vaticinations. He points out the need of Ladies' Colleges,--of a Hospital for Incurables,--of Ragged Schools, (for what else is a school "for the distressed children called the _Black-guard_?"),--and of Houses of Mercy for the reception of penitent fallen women.--Is it right to speak of a century which could freely contemplate such works as these and carry into execution many of them[142], without some allusion to the leaven which was at work beneath the dry crust of Society? the living Catholic energy which neither the average dulness of the pulpit could quench, nor the lifeless morality which had been popularly substituted for Divinity could destroy? We are abundantly prepared therefore for Mr. Pattison's admission that "public opinion was throughout on the side of the defenders of Christianity:" (p. 313:)--that, "however a loose kind of Deism might be the tone of fashionable circles, it is clear that distinct disbelief of Christianity was by no means the general state of the public mind. The leaders of the Low-Church and Whig party were quite aware of this. Notwithstanding the universal complaints of the High-Church party of the prevalence of infidelity, it is obvious that this mode of thinking was confined to a very small section of society." (p. 313.)