For the decency of public worship, the ornaments and linens of the altar, and everything connected with the sacred ceremonies of religion, he had the most scrupulous regard. He instituted regular visitations in his diocese, as he felt that he could not be exempted from a sinful negligence in omitting to comply with the decrees of Trent in this respect. In these visitations he discovered the sad state to which ecclesiastical discipline had fallen before his days. In one instance the vestments were found to be in such an unbecoming state that he tore them asunder. Returning next year to the same parish, he found the identical old vestments sewn together and kept in a turf-basket. To prevent a repetition, he consigned them to the flames, and as the parish priest was by no means a poor man, the wretched taste displayed by him was wholly unpardonable.
Hunting was not an unusual occupation with the clergy of those days. Practices by no means tending to increase the respect of the people for their pastors, had been allowed to accompany the marriage and funeral services of country districts, and all these claimed the diligent reformatory care of the active bishop. The office of reformer--as the very sound has to some an odious signification--is not the most envious one in the world, and it acquires a peculiarly distasteful character from those whose self-interested conduct may fall under its action. Hence the young bishop was sometimes accused of rashness in his undertaking to correct abuses of so long a standing, and the plea was set up that good and wise men had tolerated them in the past. Nor was he free from the receipt of letters of complaint, principally, though not always, from old pastors who found great difficulty in abandoning habits which their sense of right would not permit them to justify. They remonstrated with him for carrying out laws for the execution of which he was responsible. But he kindly reasoned with them on the necessity which pressed him to be faithful to his trust; and as he never urged his own feelings or his own bias as the motive of his action, but always appealed to the law of the church, he gradually effected the most beneficent results. He never used harshness, even where it might appear, if not necessary, at least justifiable, and never was he accused of disregarding the reasonable explanations of the humblest of his clergy. Law, not self; justice, not caprice, were the motives that incited him; and, guided by such principles, he confided the success of his efforts to God, and thus labored under the inspiration of the church.