College, Oxford, and having graduated in classical honours (third class) in 1836, he received holy orders in 1837. He was curate for a very short time, first at Alford in Somersetshire, and then at Walton-Fitzpaine in Dorsetshire; but within a year of his ordination he took a curacy at Clifton, where he remained about three years. In 1841 he became a priest-vicar of the cathedral at Exeter, and in 1843 rector also of St. Paul's, Exeter. In the same year he married Miss Frances Whitmore. About this time his convictions became strengthened and his spirituality deepened, chiefly through the influence of the earlier 'Tracts for the Times;' and it is an instance of his peculiar attractiveness that views and practices then very unpopular made him no enemies and raised very little opposition. The 'surplice riots,' e.g., were raging at Exeter, but they were little felt at St. Paul's. In 1845 he exchanged posts with Mr. Burr, vicar of Tidenham, in Gloucestershire. He found Tidenham in a ferment, owing to the introduction of usages which are now all but universal; but Mr. Armstrong soon lived the opposition down, and carried his points with all but universal approbation. Both at Exeter and Tidenham he almost entirely gave up what is called society, and devoted himself exclusively to the labours of a hard-working parish priest. But he was thoroughly happy in his domestic life; he had a truly like-minded wife and children, whom he loved to have about him even in his busiest hours. 'There was, I believe,' writes an eye-witness to the present writer, 'no separate study in the vicarage, so that much of his work was done in the midst of his family. I found him one morning writing a sermon with three of his children climbing over and playing with him; and so far from rebuking them, from time to time the pen was laid aside, and he joined in their frolics, returning again to his graver thoughts and writing; and on my admiring that he could so work, he replied simply, "I would give but little for a man that could not."' Mr. Armstrong made his mark as a preacher far beyond the limits of his country parish. 'He was,' writes a clergyman still living, 'the best all round country congregation preacher I ever knew.' A volume of 'Sermons on the Festivals,' preached at Exeter Cathedral, was published in 1845; another volume of 'Parochial Sermons' in 1854; and the series of 'Sermons for the Christian Seasons,' from Advent 1852 to Advent 1853, were all of them edited, and several of them written, by him. In some interesting sketches of 'successful preachers,' one of 'Bishop John Armstrong' will be found in the 'Guardian' of 20 Dec. 1882. He was also a successful tract-writer. He wrote many of, and was the responsible editor of all, the 'Tracts for the Christian Seasons,' the first series of which came out monthly from Advent 1848 to Advent 1849, and the second from Advent 1849 to Advent 1850; and these were followed in 1852-8 by 'Tracts for Parochial Use.' Mr. Armstrong's strong common sense and genial humour are conspicuous in these tracts, and their popularity has been very great. Mr. Armstrong had always taken the deepest interest in what are called 'social questions.' He now threw himself with characteristic energy into a scheme of which he was unquestionably the chief originator. The scheme was, to establish a system of penitentiaries, in which the chief agents should be self-devoted and unpaid ladies, working on sound church principles and under the direct superintendence of clergymen. Mr. Armstrong advocated this scheme in articles on 'Female Penitentiaries' in the 'Quarterly Review' in the autumn of 1848; in the 'Christian Remem-brancer' in January 1849; in the 'English Review' in March 1849; and in a stirring tract, entitled 'Appeal for a Church Penitentiary,' also in 1849. The interest of the public was awakened. Mr. Armstrong was as indefatigable in his private correspondence on the subject as in his articles for the press. 'I have acres of his letters,' writes a friend to the present writer, 'all on one subject — a House of Mercy for Gloucestershire.' The first church penitentiary was founded in Mr. Carter's parish of Clewer; in the same year (1849) another house of mercy was founded at Wantage; and shortly afterwards another at Bussage, in Mr. Armstrong's own diocese. In 1852 the Church Penitentiary Association was formed, and Mr. Armstrong's daydream was in a fair way of being realised. Among the rest of Mr. Armstrong's writings may be noticed his 'Pastor in the Closet,' published in 1847; a singularly vigorous article in the 'Christian Remembrancer' on the 'History and Modern State of Freemasonry' from the christian point of view, which can hardly have been acceptable to freemasons; and articles in the 'National Miscellany,' a monthly religious periodical which he founded a little while before he left England.
In 1853 he was offered the new bishopric of Grahamstowvn, chiefly through the influence of Bishop Gray, of Capetown. His penitentiary scheme was well afloat, and after having consulted some tried friends he accepted the post, and was consecrated at Lambeth on St. Andrew's day; after a few months' delay, during which, in spite of bad
