make her a praise in
the faithful guardian of our Church's influence, Primate Harper. The
loss of such fathers of the Church has been felt in the interval under
review, and could not but affect the life and progress of the Church. It
is not for me to say anything of those by whom their places have been
filled.

Another adverse circumstance which must be called to mind in such a
review is the long period of commercial depression which followed a
short period of fictitious prosperity and inflated values. Misled by the
apparently fair prospect of making money rapidly--of which prospect a
shoal of interested persons sprang up to make the most--undertakings
were entered upon on borrowed capital and properties were bought at
prices which could not be realised upon them perhaps twenty years
afterwards. The consequence of all this was a widespread desolation. My
diocesan visitations were in those days largely made on horseback, and
in a journey of perhaps many hundred miles I had to look upon stations
and homesteads at which I had formerly been hospitably received, whether
their owners belonged to our communion or not, either closed altogether
or left in charge of a shepherd.

Many of the proprietors of these sheep stations had been liberal
supporters of the Church, and their ruin spelt disaster to the
authorities of the nearest clerical charge, if not also the weakness of
diocesan institutions. During those long, long years, diocesan
management was a weariness indeed, and not the less so because it was so
hard to keep up the courage even of our church-workers themselves. I am
thankful to say that no organised charge within my own diocese was
closed in that period, but it was manifestly impossible to subdivide
districts and so to introduce additional clergy. Little else could be
thought of than holding on.

By these circumstances, then, the life of the Church was affected and
her progress hindered. New conditions were developed, and the rulers of
the Church had to accept and provide for these new conditions. I am far
from saying that the large displacement of the pastoral industry by the
agricultural was a misfortune either to the country or the Church: as
regards the latter, the large increase of the population upon the land
has given the Church more scope for the exercise of her ministerial
activities; but for vestries and church committees the work is harder,
demanding, as it does, so much closer attention to details. In