As it was, things took a different course. The chief promoters of these
noble efforts died, and much of their work died with them. Or it may be
that the times were not yet ripe for such a revival. It may even have
been better in the end for English Christianity, that no special period
of religious excitement should interfere with the serious intellectual
conflict, in which all who could give any attention to theology were
becoming deeply interested. Great problems involved in the principles of
the Reformation, but obscured up to that time by other and more
superficial controversies, were being everywhere discussed. An interval
of religious tranquillity amounting almost to stagnation may have been
not altogether unfavourable to a crisis when the fundamental axioms of
Christianity were being reviewed and tested. And, after all, dulness is
not death. The responsibilities of each individual soul are happily not
dependent upon unusual helps and extraordinary opportunities. Yet great
efforts of what may be called missionary zeal are most precious, and
fall like rain upon the thirsty earth. It is impossible not to feel
disappointment that the practical energies which at the beginning of the
eighteenth century seemed ready to expand into full life should have
proved comparatively barren of permanent results. But though the effort
was not seconded as it should have been, none the less honour is due to
the exemplary men who made it. It was an effort by no means confined to
any one section of the Church. There were few more earnest in it than
many of the London clergy who had worked heart and soul with Tillotson.
But wherever any great religious undertaking, any scheme of Christian
benevolence, was under consideration, wherever any plan was in hand for
carrying out more thoroughly and successfully the work of the Church,
there at all events was Robert Nelson, and the pious, earnest-hearted
Churchmen who enjoyed his friendship.

C.J.A.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Birch's _Life of Tillotson_, lxi.]

[Footnote 2: Ken and a few others are conspicuous as exceptions.]

[Footnote 3: W.H. Teale, _Life of Nelson_, 221.]

[Footnote 4: Dr. S. Clarke called him a model controversialist. Teale,
330.]

[Footnote 5: See his _Address to Persons of Quality_, and
_Representation of the several Ways of doing Good_. Secretan, 149.
Teale, 338.]

[Footnote 6: _Life_, by Boswell, ii. 457.]

[Footnote 7: G.G. Perry, _History of the Church of E