Welsh Journals

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The third chapter looks at the provision of churches and of services, and it is interesting to see that the introduction of two Sunday services in a church could split and demoralize a congregation. One notes also how popular Anglican rites of passage, including confirmation, remained with non- conformists. Civil marriage was most frequently met in Wales and in northern and south-western England. The next chapter deals with clerical life at a time when there were too many clergymen for the posts available and when private means seem to have been usually essential for a comfortable life. A study of two Lincolnshire clergymen shows how difficult they found it to establish a balance between their spiritual and social activities. The final chapter looks at the position of bishops, where 'an increase in business should not be mistaken for a corresponding increase in power', the gradual erosion of lay patronage, the rise of a clerical 'middle management' in the persons of archdeacons and rural deans, and the strengthening of clerical authority at the expense of the traditional lay officers of the parish. The conclusion draws attention to the steps on the road from national church to one denomination, albeit a privileged denomination, among many. The bibliography is full and up-to-date, citing key works published in 1993 and 1994. I noticed only two printing slips. It seems likely that John Rashdall wrote in his diary, rather than in his dairy (p. 85), and the parish church of Burton on Trent is dedicated to the shadowy Irish Saint Modwen, not to Saint 'Mowden' (p. 188). Wales is seldom mentioned in what is a study of English Anglicanism, although there are generous references to the reforms of Bishop Burgess of St Davids, but on many of these matters much work remains to be done as far as nineteenth-century Welsh Anglicanism is concerned, building on the sound foundations laid by Ieuan Gwynedd Jones and others. Now that Frances Knight is teaching in the University of Wales, one hopes that this perceptive scholar will turn her attention to the nineteenth-century Church of England in Welsh society and that, after striking a few matches, she will give us a study, as elegant as this, of it. D. T. W. PRICE Lampeter ARWR GLEW Erwau'r GLO: Delwedd y Glowryn LLENYDDIAETH GYMRAEG, 1850-1950. Gan Hywel Teifi Edwards. Gwasg GQmer, Llandysul, 1994. Ttixxxix, 255. £ 12.95. Datblygiad dramatig a newidiodd dirlun a delwedd Cymru gyfan oedd twf