continuance of
the united church was declared an essential part of the union. No
provision, however, was made giving the Irish clergy a place in
convocation, which was evidently held unlikely to revive. The union of
the churches was dissolved in 1871 by an act of 1869 for disestablishing
the Irish Church.

The Oxford Movement.

Apart from the Evangelical revival, religion was advanced in the church.
In 1811 the education of the poor was provided for on church principles
by the National Society; the Church Building Society was founded in
1818; and the colonial episcopate was started by the establishment of
bishoprics in Calcutta in 1814, and in Jamaica and Barbados in 1824. Yet
reforms were urgently needed. In 1813, out of about 10,800 benefices,
6311 are said to have been without resident incumbents (_The Black
Book_, p. 34); the value of some great offices was enormous, while many
of the parochial clergy were wretchedly poor. The repeal of the Test
Act, long practically inoperative, in 1828, and Catholic emancipation in
1829, mark a change in the relations of church and state; and the Reform
Bill of 1832 transferred political power from a class which generally
supported the church to classes in which dissent was strong. The
national zeal for reform was directed towards the church, not always in
a friendly spirit. Yet wholesome changes were effected by legislation:
dioceses were rearranged and two new bishoprics founded at Manchester
and Ripon, the bishopric of Bristol, however, being suppressed;
plurality and non-residence were abolished; tithes were commuted, and
the Ecclesiastical Commission, which has effected reforms in respect of
endowments, was permanently established in 1836. Some changes and
proposals alarmed churchmen, specially as legislation for the church
proceeded from parliament, while convocation remained silenced.
Latitudinarian opinions revived, and the church was regarded merely as a
human institution. Among the clergy generally ritual observance was
neglected and rubrical directions disobeyed. A few churchmen, including
Keble and Newman, set themselves to revive church feeling, and Oxford
became the centre of a new movement. The publication of Keble's
_Christian Year_ prepared its way, and its aims were declared in his
assize sermon at Oxford on "National Apostasy" in 1833. Its promoters
urged their views in _Tracts for the Times_, and were strengthened by
the adhesion of Pusey. Hence they were