But as to any great collections of historical documents, except only that at the Record Office, they do not exist; they have still to be made. Meanwhile one large class of records--the ecclesiastical, parochial, and testamentary records--may be said to be in great danger of gradually but certainly perishing, partly from mere disuse, partly from the want of any adequate provision for their safe keeping, partly from the actual uncertainty that attaches to their ownership. One and all they are national records, the preservation of which ought to be assured to the nation by very different precautions from any which now are provided. Whom do the parish registers belong to? What guarantee have we that X or Y or Z may not sell “his” registers to the highest bidder? In point of fact, parish registers have been bought and sold again and again. Who are the owners of such a splendid collection of historic MSS. as is to be found in the archives of St. Lawrence’s Church, Reading? What is to prevent the churchwardens from selling them to a “collector” and appropriating the proceeds towards the expense of a new organ? Where are the records of Barchester now that the Venerable Archdeacon Grantley has ceased to edify us with his eloquent charges? In how many instances is there to be found anything remotely resembling a catalogue of such archidiaconal records? How many living men have ever consulted such as there are or would know where to look for them? Let me not be misunderstood. I have received so much kindness, hospitality, and cordial assistance at the hands of so many who have laid open their muniments to my inspection, I have found and made among these gentlemen such warm friends that I can only think of them and speak of them with gratitude and esteem. But who knows better than the most learned and most entirely loyal among the custodians of our ecclesiastical and parochial muniments that the state of things as they are is not the state of things that ought to be? And yet there can surely be no insuperable difficulty in grouping together our ecclesiastical, testamentary, and parochial muniments, forming them into one homogeneous collection, and bringing them together into a single provincial record office, taking the geographical limits of the diocese as the area within which the several aggregates of ancient documents shall be deposited.