jority in each order required to secure the adoption of any propositions, or the passage of any vital measure. The House of Bishops sits apart and votes in its own order. The House of Deputies, composed of four clerical and four lay delegates from each diocese and missionary jurisdiction, sits as one body. But upon demand, any vote upon a vital proposition may be required to be taken by orders, giving power to the laity to prevent the passage of any measure which, by them, is disapproved, even though it has received the assent of a majority vote in the House of Bishops, and the assent of a majority vote of the clerical order in the House of Deputies. Any constitutional change or Prayer Book alteration has to be voted on by orders, and then referred back for consideration to the Diocesan Councils, and thus comes back directly to the congregations, who, through their vestries, elect the delegates to the Council. Thus the laity are impowered with fundamental and grave responsibilities in this Church, which, by reason of these constitutional provisions, is

essentially democratic in the form and spirit of her government and administration.

It is, however, significant that the call which has aroused the laity of this Church to the large measure of their sense of responsibility for helping to fulfill the mission of the Church, as recently manifested, is a call which has come to them, in large measure, from outside this Church.

The clear, definite call to world evangelization; the practical and potent appeal of the Laymen's Missionary Organisation, voiced through conventions held all over America, and expressed through the every member canvass idea, which originated in this organisation, has aroused and enlisted the co-operation of the laity of this Church to an extent which we should gladly recognise and accord to the spirit and desire of these co-operative endeavours to extend the Kingdom of Christ. The Church trained the spirit in the laity which makes the response, and by her spiritual ministration, trained the will to respond. The call, however,

which is to-day inspiring thousands of laymen in this Church to make response is the call of Christ through agencies originating outside her fold.

That there are agencies, such as the Sunday School Movement, the Y. M. C. A. and the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, which were born in the consecrated thought of her own sons, and which have been heard and answered by men of every Christian communion, shows how interrelated and interdependent we are in the great Household of God, "which is the blessed company of all faithful people."

The time has surely come when it behooves the bishops and pastors of the Church to face the facts as they exist, with an open and candid mind, and to take inventory of the forces and inspirational impulses which are to-day appealing to the laymen of this Church, and which will appeal with more impelling power in the years which lie immediately ahead, and to ask what is the wisest policy to pursue in order to conserve and keep in touch with these forces which

are now so potently at work in the heart and conscience and will of so many of her members.

In determining what this policy shall be, the laity have, in this Church, a voice and influence which, if it should make itself felt in legislation, as it does in co-operative endeavour, would tend very largely to decide what should be the policy and attitude of this Church with reference to these great world movements, and spiritual awakenings which are going on about us, and which will go on without us, but which are calling to us to help, with a pathos and power of appeal which sounds to very many of us as though it were the voice of the Son of God and Saviour of mankind speaking to us through the baptised membership of His Body.

CHAPTER XLII

THE WAY PREPARED FOR THIS

CHURCH

HIS Church stands to-day before a wide

TH

open door of opportunity. She has much to give. Her inheritance from the past is a possession needed to enrich and impower the Church of the future. The creed she says is being increasingly said by other communions. The prayers of her liturgy are being more frequently learned and woven into the public prayers of non-conformist ministers. Recently her prayer for missions has been printed and used in unison by the thousand and more men and women convened in two great Laymen's Missionary Conventions. The Christian Year is winning constantly increasing favour. The