The Bishops of Chester were unable to devote much of their time to the Liverpool portion of their diocese. The result was that the leaders of the evangelical party became little autocrats in their way. Under these conditions church life became dormant, and the church narrow and formal, and wanting in spirituality. Her liturgy and the devotional part of her services were sacrificed, and made secondary to preaching. This was the state of things in 1880, when the see of Liverpool was founded.
Two great influences were, however, quietly operating in the church. The school of the Oxford tract writers gave prominence to the sacramental system and corporate powers of the church, which enlisted a new class of energies in her service, and the publication of _Essays and Reviews_, although they gave a temporary shock to church people, was productive of good, by broadening the theological outlook, and inviting that higher criticism which quickened more interest in the truths of the Bible, and deepened the reverence for the wider conception of the love of God.
Dr. Ryle, our first Bishop, was a recognised leader of the evangelical party, and a prolific writer of church tracts. He was an able preacher, a good platform speaker after the old-fashioned pattern, and had a very imposing and apostolic presence.
Dr. Ryle's work as our first Bishop was a difficult and arduous one. He tried to be fair and just to all parties in the church, but he was urged by some of his evangelical followers to take action in restraint of the high church practices which prevailed in some churches, and to give his episcopal sanction to the prosecution of the Rev. J. Bell-Cox. He consented with reluctance. The Bishop at this time frequently came to my house and I know how unhappy he was at this juncture; not that he in any way sympathised with the practices sought to be checked--they were most repugnant to him--but he appreciated the self-sacrificing work of the high church clergy, and thought that other and gentler means and methods might be adopted to bring about the desired result.
In his later years his Lordship's ecclesiastical views became broader and more liberal. In face of many difficulties he did an excellent and most successful work in building churches and schools. Beneath an apparently haughty manner he had a big and kind heart, and those who were privileged to know him best loved him most.