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varied but seldom (as St. Lo was moved to Coutances); in England it was ever shifting. This leads to confusion. "Somerset," "Wells," "Bath," and "Bath and Wells" are simply different names for the same extent of country. So were Lichfield, Chester, Coventry, Coventry and Lichfield, Lichfield and Coventry. So were Elmham, Thetford, and Norwich; so were others. The bishopstool was changed, and the style of the Bishop with it, but the boundaries of the diocese remained the same.
The principle that I should try to lay down is that dioceses should follow counties. It is the principle of old Gaul, the principle of modern Germany, the principle of England at several intermediate stages, that the ecclesiastical divisions should follow the civil. It is specially needful in England, where the civil divisions are so old, where they enter into so many points of men's thoughts, feelings, and associations. A diocese made up of scraps is as bad as the last abomination in civil divisions, the pestilent "Assize County," against which rational grand juries are protesting. Let shire and diocese be the same; let Bishop and ealdorman sit side by side, whenever they have a chance; then we know where we are; we are not pulled one way in the flesh and another in the spirit. I am sure the all but absolute identity of the shire of Somerset and the diocese of Somerset has been of the greatest practical use. The Bishop and the bishopric are known everywhere, as something which is a man's own as much as the shire with its sheriff and lord-lieutenant. It is not so where geography is less happy. I remember the remark forty years ago, when the great restoration of the church of Hereford was going on. It was said that the people of Herefordshire cared for their cathedral church; it was an essential part of their shire and city. But the people of that part of Shropshire which was in the diocese of Hereford did not care for the church of Hereford; to them it was a foreign church in a foreign city and shire.
The only objection to the general union of shire and diocese is that it would make dioceses of such different sizes. That, of course, should be avoided in an absolute counsel of perfection. In mapping out a new country we should make both shires and dioceses as nearly equal as physical circumstances might allow That in England they are not equal is one of the consequences
