Page:VCH London 1.djvu/458

 A HISTORY OF LONDON there. *^° The members of the Connexion did not deem themselves Dissenters ; many, Hlce John Russell the painter,*" being strongly attached to the Church of England. It was not until 178 1 that the necessity of either submitting to the canons, or of licensing the chapels as Dissenting places of worship under the Toleration Act, drove Lady Huntingdon to accept the latter alternative.*®* But the revival at the beginning of the 19th century was not confined to one school of thought. The energetic band of High Churchmen,**' styled ' the Hackney phalanx,' were particularly active in the north of London. The influence of this devoted group does not seem to have made itself greatly felt in the City and Westminster, but it was doubtless on their lines that Bishop Blomtield laid the foundations of the London movement. The reforming spirit of 1832 was felt not merely in parliamentary and civil affairs, but in the life of the Church in London."" Charles James Blomfield, as rector of St. Botolph's Bishopsgate, was an active organizer as well as a great scholar. Elected Bishop of London in 1 828 he increased the administrative efficiency of the diocese in 1833 by the formation of forty-seven rural deaneries, each consist- ing of about ten parishes.*" This revival of Bishop Henchman's proposal*" was made at an opportune moment, for already ' a spirit of innovation ' was abroad *'' among the younger Oxford clergy, and in London there was a desire to return to a stricter observance of the rubrics.*'* In 1838 Dean Hook startled London by his sermon before the young queen on ' Hear the Church,' *^' but so far the new ideas were chiefly expounded in London by young Oxford men, who met with opposition from the beneficed clergy, and with little sympathy from the bishop.*'^ While the Tractarians were engaged with doctrine Blomfield was working to revive the due celebration of divine service in accordance with the rubrics and canons. The ' London move- ment ' was expressed in Blomfield's charge of 1842, in which he desired his clergy to hold services on the Feasts of the Circumcision, Epiphany, and Ascension, daily through Passion week, on the Monday and Tuesday after Easter Day and Whit Sunday, and upon Ash Wednesday. He also required that baptism should be administered at the time appointed by the rubric, and that the prayer for the Church militant should be read.*" Some of the clergy at once complied ; *'* opposition came, not as was anticipated from the rectors of the great west-end parishes, but from seventeen Evan- gelical clergymen of Islington.*'' Twenty years later Blomfield's contentions were universally admitted, though the black gown still held its place in most London pulpits.^"" The bishop's course was disapproved by the Tractarians, whose influence began to be felt among the older clergy soon after 1840. William Dods- worth at All Saints Margaret Street and later at Christ Church Albany Street*"^ formed a little centre for Tractarian teaching in its most extreme form. He was followed at All Saints by Oakley, against whom the bishop instituted '** Abbey and Overton, Engl. Ch. in the lith Cent, ii, 125. <" Blomfield, Charge, 1834, p. 32. «" Ibid. 65. <» Ibid. i. "' Blomfield, Mem. ii, 9, 12. '" Blomfield, Charge, 1842. "'Blomfield, Mem. ii, 44. '" Ibid. 50-1. The details of this incident lie beyond the scope of the present article. '^ Ibid. 63. *<" Mozley, op. cit. il, 10. .370
 * Carus, Mem. of Rev. Charles Simeon, 277. *" G. C. Williamson, John Russell, R.J. 25.
 * Mozley, Reminiscences, i, 339. *^ Churton, Life 0/ Joshua Watson, ii, 3, 4.
 * A. Blomfield, Mem. ofC. J. Blomfield, ii, 3. '" Mozley, Reminiscences, 1,444.