East and West London Author:Harry Jones Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PAROCHIAL SUBDIVISION. The general drift of this last chapter now leads me to remark, that I think the excessive entanglement of the clergy in minute semi-sec... more »ular pastoral work, has been unwittingly promoted, to some extent, by the subdivision of large parishes in the poorest part of London. I would now, therefore, venture to say a word about this process, which has been adopted in order to meet what are termed the spiritual needs of large populations. In several places these subdivisions have been productive of much good. Some young broods dismissed from the parent nest have been able to take care of themselves. They have indeed not carried with them the vital spark of corporate life, but having within their boundaries a large admixture of classes, they have risen above sheer Congregationalism, and become fresh centres of parochial vitality. In the case, however, of poor districts cutoff from a mother parish, and having neither inside their limits, nor within easy reach, any reserve of well-to-do people, it has been found exceedingly difficult to rouse them to a feeling of corporate life, or even to retain such as the new district had originally contributed to the well-being of the mother parish. In these too often the ' new vicar' has been plunged, and left up to his shoulders in a pond of poverty. In some instances his individual enthusiasm and industry has floated the district during his incumbency, but it has sunk under other management. The ' poor' district parish gets no ' way' upon it, as a sailor would say. Its parochial life is intermittent, according to the energy of the incumbent. If he happens to be ill-suited, or to become exhausted, almost the whole parochial life stops. This, of course, is in some measure true of any place or post, but it is sometimes special...« less