plied. The Rev. Alfred Holmead has resigned the Rectorship of Grace Church, Ellicott's Mills, and removed, as I learn from the public prints, to the charge of the Academy at Winchester, in Virginia.

The Rev. William P. C. Johnson has recently resigned the Rectorship of St. Andrew's Parish, St. Mary's county.

The Rev. Samuel C. Kerr resigned the charge of All Faith Parish, in the same county, last autumn, on his removal in search of health, to a more southern climate. Both the last named parishes are vacant, and at this season, I fear, likely to continue so. Nowhere is the want of a native clergy, born to the soil, and trained to the manners and habits of the people, more severely felt than in the southern counties of our two shores. If the Church in Maryland be not careful to raise up sons for their supply, and if her sons, as they come forward to assume the high trusts of the holy ministry, have not zeal enough, and respect for the order of God's Providence which has called them to the work in this portion of the field, to make them willing to endure the privations, and encounter the discouragements peculiar to those counties, I know not what, under a special manifestation of divine interference which it would be wicked presumption to expect, can save them from a slow, perhaps, but certain, ultimate loss of the participation of the means of grace. Frequently recurring vacancies make the people continually more and more insensible to the loss they suffer in such privations of the word and sacraments. Closed churches, and Sundays spent in idleness or worse, prepare them for total indifference to religious duty. Children grow up untrained in the truths of the Gospel or holy duties, and too often unbaptized. Adults sicken and die unwarned, unreproved, uncomforted. Decaying churches, and neglected churchyards, tell too true a tale of decaying interest in all that raises man above the brute that lives to nourish its carcase or to work as a machine, and dies to fatten the soil or feed its slayer. Forgive me, if I am earnest on this subject, brethren!

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There is none of you, but would be so too, if it were brought before his notice as often as it pressed on mine, by the weight of care which you have laid on me in my office, with the responsibility which belongs to it before Gon.

To continue my list of changes,-the Rev. Meyer Lewin has resigned St. Michael's Parish, Talbot county, and accepted the charge of Christ Church Parish, Calvert county. The Rev. Malcolm MacFarland has been elected Rector of St. Mark's Church, Baltimore. The Rev. James A. McKenney, having dissolved his connexion with St. John's Institute, has accepted a call to the Rectorship of Sherwood Church, Baltimore county. The Rev. James Moore has removed from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills, where he is associated with the Rev. Mr. Stearns in the conduct of the Rock Hill Institute, and as Assistant Minister of Grace Church in that village. The Rev. Cleland K. Nelson has been called to the Rectorship of St. Anne's Parish, Anne Arundel county. The Rev. Carter Page having resigned the Rectorship of Cranmer Chapel, Baltimore, has changed his actual residence, though not his canonical, to Virginia, where he is engaged in ministerial functions and in teaching school. The Rev. Francis Peck has resigned the Rectorship of the Church of the Ascension, Baltimore. The Rev. Joshua Peterkin has resigned the Rectorship of All Saints' Parish, Frederick county, and accepted that of Zion Parish in the same county, to which he was called upon its resignation by the Rev. Richard H. Phillips. Mr. Phillips has since been chosen Assistant Minister of the same parish. The Rev. William N. Pendleton has resigned the Rectorship of Sherwood Church, Baltimore county, and accepted that of All Saints' Parish, Frederick. Rev. Ruben Riley has been elected Rector of St. Luke's Church in the city of Baltimore. The Rev. John P. Robins has resigned the Rectorship of St. John's Parish, Worcester county, and removed to Baltimore. The Rev. Alexander Shiras has been

compelled by ill health to relinquish the charge of St. John's Church, Georgetown, where he still continues to reside. The Rev. Dr. Spencer having dissolved his connexion with St. John's Institute, has resumed the charge of St. Michael's Parish, Talbot county, vacated by the resignation of Mr. Lewin. The Rev. Edward J. Stearns has removed from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills, where he is Rector of Grace Church, and Principal of the Rock Hill Institute. The Rev. Edwin M. Van Deusen has resigned the charge of St. Anne's Parish, Anne Arundel county, on his removal to the diocese of Delaware. The Rev. Cyrus Waters, on accepting the charge of Ellicott Chapel, Patuxent Forge, has resigned the Rectorship of Dorchester Parish, Dorchester county, which still continues unsupplied. The Rev. Hanson T. Wilcoxon has relinquished his mission in Frederick county, having accepted the Rectorship of St. Andrew's Church, Clear Spring, in Washington county. The Rev. Thomas W. Winchester has resigned the Rectorship of St. Peter's Parish, Montgomery county, and is now residing, without charge, in Baltimore. The Rev. Henry W. Woods having resigned the Rectorship of St. John's Church, (in the Valley) Baltimore county, has been called to that of Trinity Church, Upper Marlborough.

Long as this list of changes is, I had reason at one time to fear that it would have been increased by half, and was detained in Baltimore some weeks last autumn by the necessity of constant correspondence produced by the removals then made and in contemplation. Some of the latter, most happily, were for the time prevented. Would that I could flatter myself that the evils. which led to their projection had been remedied, or were even in the course of finding an effectual remedy!

There are fifteen candidates for Holy Orders in the diocese, of whom only one, G. W. Morrison, has been admitted in the diocese since the last Convention. Two, Samuel R. Sargeant and Henry Onderdonk, have been received by dismission from the Bishop of New Jersey. One candidate, Levin W. Trader, has

withdrawn. One, William L. Hyland, has been dismissed by letters to the Bishop of Virginia; one, William J. Lynd, to the Bishop of Louisiana; and one, Cornelius E. Swope, to the Bishop of New Jersey. Two residents of this diocese have applied with my consent to the Bishop of Virginia for admission as candidates in that diocese: the Standing Committee of this having declined to consent to the dispensation with literary qualifications in their case. Joseph Newton Wattson, a candidate for orders in this diocese, has been licensed to act as a Lay Reader; and a temporary license as Lay Reader has been granted to Francis C. Clements, a candidate in the diocese of Pennsylvania.

My visitations during the conventional year have been much hindered, and my performance of official acts much lessened, in part by necessary attendance on the business of the Church abroad, and still more by domestic affliction in the form of severe illness in my family. Nearly two-thirds of the year have thus been rendered useless for the purpose of visitation, and that at the seasons best suited to the performance of the duty. The number of confirmations has, in consequence, been much below the average, and parts of the diocese which I had fully counted on visiting, have been neglected; in the case of one congregation, until more than the canonical limit has elapsed. Twenty-four parishes and seventeen congregations have been visited; two parishes and eight congregations more than once; and in these visits I have officiated in forty-seven churches, chapels and other places of public service, administering the Holy Communion forty-three times; the sacrament of Baptism seven times, to eleven infants; Confirmation thirty-seven times, to two hundred and fifty-one persons; saying Morning or Evening Prayers forty times, and preaching eighty-nine times, beside delivering forty-six other addresses on various occasions. I have attended two convocations of the clergy, consecrated two churches, instituted two rectors, laid one corner stone of a church, and ordained three deacons and five priests.

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The parishes and congregations visited have been in Allegany county, Emmanuel Parish; St. George's Church, Mount Savage; and St. Paul's Church, at the Maryland Mining Works: in Anne Arundel county, Queen Caroline, St. Anne's, and St. Margaret's Westminster Parishes; Grace Church, Ellicott's Mills, and St. John's Church, Howard District: in Baltimore county, St. Paul's and St. Thomas's Parishes; St. Timothy's Church, Catonsville; St. John's Church in the Valley, and St. John's Church, Huntingdon in the City of Baltimore, St. Peter's, St. Andrew's, St. James's, the Ascension, St. Stephen's, and Trinity Churches and St. Mark's and St. Luke's chapels: in Cecil county, St. Mary Anne Parish: in Charles county, Durham, Port Tobacco, Trinity and William and Mary Parishes: in the District of Columbia, Rock Creek, St. John's and Trinity Parishes in Harford county, St. John's Parish: in Kent county, Chester, St. Paul's, and Shrewsbury Parishes in Prince George county, St. John's and St. Philip's Parishes; and St John's Parish in Prince George and Charles counties: in St. Mary's county, All Faith Parish and in Talbot county, St. Peter's Parish.

The diocesan College of St. James, St. Timothy's Hall, the diocesan female school at the Patapsco Institute, the Hannah More Academy, and the female school lately conducted by Mrs. Windsor at Walnut Grange, have all been objects of special visitation; at which, beside attendance at examinations, the commencement of the College, and other exercises, confirmations have been holden. As usual, more than one-tenth of all the confirmations for the year have been of the pupils of these Institutions. My conviction of their importance to the diocese strengthens from year to year, with the extension of my opportunities for observation, and I deem it proportionally more and more my duty to urge upon both clergy and laity the support of our schools in every way. Let us make a conscience of securing for every child of either sex, that is sent from home for education, the