creasing. Yet, although the circumstance had escaped notice, the number ordained into the Anglican communion outside of England had largely increased in recent years, and it was only fair to assume that there were some in that number who would otherwise have been ordained for work in England. The inadequate pay of the clergy was regarded as the chief cause of the decline, and questions on matters of belief and the attractions offered by other careers in various parts of the empire were mentioned as other possible causes. In the lower house resolutions were passed approving of the draft bill for the reform of Convocation. The report of the Committee on Elementary Education, embodying suggestions concerning the organization of school boards, was adopted.

Both houses resolved themselves into committee in order to sit in committee of the two convocations on the following day.

In the Convocation of York, Feb. 22, a joint committee was appointed to confer with the joint committee appointed by the Convocation of Canterbury on the subject of the reform of ecclesiastical courts. A resolution was adopted in the upper house directing the appointment of a committee to consider and report on the rights and responsibilities of the state "as intrusted in the Divine order with the guardianship of property and with coercive powers." In the lower house a gravamen protesting against the remarriage of divorced persons was made an articulus cleri.

The Convocation met again, April 25. A resolution was carried in both houses expressing the opinion that the points of agreement between the majority and minority reports of the Royal Commission on the Licensing Law constituted a practical basis for legislation. The upper house adopted the alternative evening service presented at its previous session, with the proviso that it was to be observed as an alternative service in mission churches and as "additional" elsewhere. A proposition was approved favoring the insertion of the name of St. Patrick in the calendar of the Prayer Book. The committee appointed at the last group of sessions to consider and report on the rights and responsibilities of the state as intrusted in the Divine order with the guardianship of property and with coercive powers presented as their opinion that "the true basis and character of the committee of appeal, as representing the state, not the Church, will be best understood, and the limited range of its decisions most clearly recognized, if it be divested altogether of ecclesiastical appendages and appearances, expert theological opinion and information being obtained as expert opinion is obtained in other cases, and in such a way as neither to compromise the Church in its corporate capacity nor to interfere with the final responsibility of the state in temporal matters." A suggestion was approved in the lower house in the consideration of the report of the Committee on Elementary Education that it would be expedient for the committee of the Convocations of Canterbury and York to meet in consultation with the standing committee of the National Society and the secretaries of the Aid Grant Associations to consider the question of the constitution and powers of the proposed local educational authorities. The report of the parliamentary committee on the burial grounds bill was received as a measure which might very well be welcomed. This bill was likewise approved in the House of Laymen. A motion, offered by . Lord Halifax, "that inasmuch as the main object of the acts of uniformity of 1559 and 1662 has been definitely abandoned by the toleration act VOL. XL-2 A

of 1690 and the repeal of the test act and other acts of the same kind, the question of the repeal of the acts of uniformity should be seriously considered," was defeated in the house by 22 votes to 4.

The Convocation met as one house, July 4, and resolved itself into committee of the whole in order to meet a similar committee of the Southern Convocation in the Church House, Westminster, on the next day.

Joint Meeting of Convocations. The two convocations, meeting jointly as committees of the whole, July 5 and 6, agreed "that it is desirable to strengthen the organization of the diocesan and provincial courts in such a way that complaints concerning ritual or doctrine should be tried in the diocesan court in the first instance; and that if an appeal be carried to the provincial court, it should be heard before a body of judges who would command general confidence; second, that the bishop sit in the diocesan court, accompanied by two theological and two legal assessors "; and, third, that appeals to the provincial court be heard and determined by the archbishop and two episcopal, two legal, and two theological assessors appointed by the archbishop, the episcopal assessors with the assent of the upper, and the theological assessors with that of the lower house of the Convocation. The meeting also expressed a desire "to see the laity of the Church taking their definite place in the management of the affairs of the Church in the parish, the diocese, and the province," and commended the matter to the convocations and the houses of laymen.

That

The Ritualistic Agitation. In a pastoral issued in December, 1899, the Archbishop of York represented that the great majority of the clergy who had adopted the doubtful practices reviewed in the decision of the archbishops of July 31 (see Annual Cyclopædia for 1899) had yielded obedience to their bishops. There was still, however, a remnant of 30 out of the 300 clergymen implicated who had declined to comply-a number which in the whole of the clergy of the Church of England need occasion little anxiety. small number, however, had power to do harm. The archbishop thought the bishops would not of themselves prosecute the nonconforming clergy, although they had the power, but that it was unlikely that they would place any impediment in the way of others who desired to take that step. As to the disobedient clergy, it would be impossible to give them the same advantages as were freely granted to the other clergy, or to place the same confidence in their judgment, and particularly in their fitness for dealing with their younger brethren as they would otherwise have deserved. The archbishop further discussed the possibility of the law concerning the abandoned customs being changed through the action of Convocation, sanctioned by the Crown.

A deputation waited on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Jan. 19, to express, on behalf of themselves and other signatories to a written protest which was handed to his Grace, their objections to the opinion of the two archbishops on the ceremonial use of incense and processional lights. The protest, to which 13,794 signatures were attached, was based on the following grounds: "First, that your Grace has attempted not merely to define by an individual and autocratic exercise of power the ceremonial practice of the Church in this land, but also to press such definition upon dioceses of which your Grace is not the ruler, and, however ready your Grace's suffragans may be to submit to this, we as Catholic lay people must strenuously protest, and will resist to the utmost, a prece

dent which may lead us into a position differing but little from that against which the Church rightly protested three hundred years ago. Secondly, we protest against your Grace's attempt to foist upon the Church, as her rule of ceremonial, a penal act of Parliament passed in days of regal autocracy, and intended to meet circumstances entirely different from those of to-day. And we are the more aggrieved because we were led to suppose that your Grace had intended to investigate the question upon the principles of Catholic law and custom and liturgical science, and not upon the construction of the alleged law of the state."

The Duke of Newcastle and Lord Edward Spencer Churchill spoke in support of the protest. The archbishop, replying to the addresses of these gentlemen, began with a reference to the closing sentence of the paper, saying he was quite certain that it would be impossible to quote any words of his that could fairly be said to convey the impression mentioned there as held by the protesters. "I gave no one to suppose," he said, "that I intended to investigate the question upon any other principles but the principles, as I understood them, of obedience to the law of the Church itself, and particularly of obedience to the law of the Church of England." He then reviewed the reasoning of the opinion, the grounds on which it was based, and the method of procedure adopted, justifying the course of the archbishops in reaching it, and intimated that the opinion need not be taken as a command to obey unless the bishops enforce it upon their clergy. "It is left for the bishops to call upon the clergy to take this opinion, but if they do not choose to act in this way that, of course, would set the clergy in that diocese perfectly free from obedience to that opinion. The clergy may very fairly say in that case, 'My bishop does not call upon me to obey this opinion, therefore I am not bound by it,' but there is not a word in the opinion which shows the smallest desire to set aside the separate opinion of the separate bishops in their various dioceses. It appears to me to be not quite borne out by any arguments that have been put before me, though some of the arguments that have been put before me do really express something more than is in the protest.'

The Bishop of London, in his primary charge to the clergy of his diocese, delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, Feb. 21, reviewed the principal questions in controversy as to their history and their significance. He took into account the motives of the reformers of the sixteenth century in introducing the changes they made in the Prayer Book, the differences in the thought and custom and conditions of that time and of the present, and the motives and purposes by which the partisans of both sides of the present controversy were animated. As to the questions concerning the holy communion, the bishop affirmed that the reformers in the later years of Henry VIII avowedly pursued the object of turning the mass into a communion, their purpose being to get rid of the abuses which had grown up around the idea and practice of the mass. The further changes made in the second Prayer Book of Edward VI were prompted by a doubt whether the first Prayer Book had adequately succeeded in this object. On this ground it was thought wise to drop the word mass in the second book, and to incorporate a condemnation of the mass in the Articles of 1553. "This is the object which the Church of England has ever pursued, to make the holy communion a service for the people to which they came prepared to receive the gifts of grace in the way which Jesus had appointed.

Our own time has seen a fuller accomplishment of that object than any previous period has witnessed. . . . It is greatly to be regretted that this advance toward the due appreciation of the mind of the Church should be checked by anything which even remotely suggests a desire to return to that perception of the holy communion which was so pernicious." The bishop traced the origin of "fasting communion to the customs of the sixteenth century, when the hours for meals were so fixed that it was most convenient to attend the communion service before the midday meal. Customs were not meant to be burdens to generations whose habits of life had changed."

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The position of the Church of England on confession was that it was left to every man's discretion. It was not to be enjoined, still less was it to be enforced, by the clergy. Every one was advised to try and quiet his own conscience first, and if he needed further help he might seek it at his own responsibility. "The Church does not impose confession as a discipline; it recommends, in the first place, confession to Almighty God; it reserves private confession for cases where a man is unable to quiet his own conscience. No teaching should be given by the clergy which does not state all these facts." Further, the Bishop of London wrote, Feb. 26, to a correspondent who inquired of him: "Confession is a private and personal matter. There is no service provided for it except in the case of the sick. If any one seeks a clergyman's counsel and advice, he does so of his own free will. A clergyman is called 'a minister of God's Word.' He can only minister that Word, and his advice, in whatever form it is given, must rest on that, and that only."

At the annual meeting of the Protestant Alliance, April 25, resolutions were adopted expressing the belief that the revival of the mass, auricular confession, and other Roman Catholic practices was disastrous to the spiritual and moral welfare of the people; pledging the meeting to uphold the scriptural principles of the Reformation as the only effective guarantee of religious and civil freedom; and approving the endeavor of the Alliance to organize Protestant electors so as to return members of Parliament pledged to support legislation for the maintenance of those principles. Other resolutions expressed alarm at the continued lawlessness of a large section of the Anglican clergy and the culpable neglect of duty on the part of the authorities of the Established Church, as well as the delay of the Government in fulfilling their pledges to introduce a measure for the compulsory discontinuance of "Romish" practices; recording a renewed determination to continue the agitation against the illegalities complained of until they shall be effectually dealt with; and declaring that “in view of the increasing efforts of papal propagandists to restore the pre-eminence of sacerdotal authority in this country, the toleration of priestly interference in any measure with the affairs of the state is inconsistent with civil and religious freedom."

In A Further Indictment of the Bishops and of the Government (issued in April), the Church Association maintained that the bishops had continued to aid and abet lawlessness in the Church of England. Members of the English Church Union and of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament had during the past year received promotion at the hands of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishops of London, Durham, Winchester, Bangor, Chichester, Ely, Exeter, Carlisle, Gloucester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Llandaff, Newcastle, Oxford, Peterborough, Rochester, St. Albans, Salisbury, Worcester, and Truro.

At a meeting of the Ladies' League for the Defense of the Reformed Faith of the Church of England, held March 22, Lady Wimborne, presiding, explained that the work of the league was mainly educational. Its endeavor was, by the circulation of suitable literature and the delivery of lectures in various districts, to diffuse a wider knowledge of the history of the Church and of its teachings regarding the great doctrinal truths. The Ladies' Protestant League was organized in 1899 for the purpose of enlisting the influence of women in opposition to ritualism. It was represented at the meeting held in London, May 10, that 2,000 members had been enrolled. The sum of £10,000 was needed for the establishment of a young ladies' high-class boarding school with teaching in accordance with the principles of the Reformed and Protestant Church of England.

On June 18 deputations representing the Church Association and other Protestant bodies waited on Sir W. Walrond, chief Conservative whip, and Mr. Herbert Gladstone, chief Liberal whip, to urge the necessity for Church reform and for the adoption of candidates prepared to put down ritualistic excesses by further legislation. Sir W. Walrond declined to go into the question of policy or to criticise the advisability of making the Church question a test at the next general election, but assured the deputation that headquarters would give them any assistance in their power, and that he would inform Mr. Balfour, who he was sure was alive to the gravity of the situation, of what had happened. Mr. Herbert Gladstone said that he could not undertake the responsibility of the Liberal party, but would communicate with Sir Campbell Bannerman and his colleagues.

At the thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Church Association, in May, Captain Cobbham, presiding, claimed that much had been done by the society during the past year in concentrating and making effectual the Protestant vote of the country. The annual report accused the archbishops themselves of illegally encroaching upon the rights of the Church. A resolution was adopted pledging the meeting to support only Protestant candidates at parliamentary elections.

At the anniversary meeting of the English Church Union, held in the Church House, June 21, the following declaration, proposed by Lord Halifax, was adopted by a standing vote: "We, members of the English Church Union, holding fast to the faith and teaching of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church-that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper the bread and wine, through the operation of the Holy Ghost, become, in and by consecration, according to our Lord's institution, verily and indeed the body and blood of Christ, and that Christ our Lord, present in the same most holy sacrament of the altar under the form of bread and wine, is to be worshiped and adored desire, in view of present circumstances, to reaffirm, in accordance with the teaching of the Church, our belief in the verity of the Christian faith, and to declare that we shall abide by all such teaching and practice as follow from this doctrine of the whole Catholic Church of Christ." Other resolutions declared that the Church Union, believing that many of the differences which divide the members of the Church of England are largely due to misunderstandings, and are often more apparent than real, expresses its thankfulness that the holding of a conference for mutual explanation has been brought before the London Diocesan Conference, and the desire of its members to support by all means in their power this effort to promote the peace of the Church,"

and "that the Church of England can not discharge her responsibilities unless she herself freely interprets her own formularies and is free to take all such other steps as in the light of her living experience she may deem necessary for the spiritual welfare of the people committed to her charge."

It was represented, pending the adoption of the annual report of the council of the union, that the organization had now nearly 40,000 members, the increase having been as great during the past thirty months as in the previous eight years.

Reservation of the Sacrament.-The Archbishops of Canterbury and York gave decisions, May 1, on three cases involving the question of the reservation of the sacrament, the arguments in which had been heard in July, 1899. In two of the cases the Archbishop of Canterbury was the principal and the Archbishop of York the assessor, while the Archbishop of York was the principal in the third case. The question was defined by the Archbishop of Canterbury in rendering his opinion as being whether the clergy of the Church of England are at liberty to reserve a portion of the bread and wine that have been consecrated in their churches at the holy communion and administer it to those who are not present in the church at the time when the prayer of consecration has been said. The practice, which is commonly spoken of as reservation, takes three distinct forms. In the first place, it is sometimes the practice to treat sick persons who are not in the church, but are living close by, as if they were part of the congregation, and at the time of administration to the communicants generally to take the elements out of the church to them as well as to those who are actually present. It is claimed that this is not reservation at all, inasmuch as the administration goes on without interruption, and it can not be said that what is sent in this way is part of what remains after the service is over. The second form of the practice is, instead of consuming all that remains of the consecrated elements as the rubric directs, to keep a portion back and to administer this portion to people known to be sick at some later period of the day. This is acknowledged by all to be reservation, and the reserved elements are kept in the church until the time when they are taken to the sick. Third, the elements after consecration are sometimes reserved, not only to be used for those who are known to be sick at the time, but also for any case of sudden emergency which may occasion a demand for the sacrament in the course of the week. Now, the canon requires that every clergyman shall promise that in the administration of the sacraments he will use the form prescribed in the Prayer Book and none other, except so far as shall be otherwise ordered by lawful authority. On examining the Prayer Book, we do not find any single mention of or allusion to the practice of reservation except in the close of the twenty-eighth article, where it is said the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshiped. It will obviously require overwhelming evidence to prove that reservation in any sense whatever is part of the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Further, the language of the Thirty-nine Articles can not be taken otherwise than as condemning the practice altogether. All the four prohibitions must be taken together, and all of them in connection with the doctrine of transubstantiation emphatically repudiated just before. The reason for the prohibition is clear. These practices led to gross abuse which the Church of England felt

bound to stop; and even the administration from the church direct during the service is shown to come under the same head, for it gives an opening to the same abuse. Reservation is, moreover, not necessary. The Prayer Book appoints a shortened service of communion for the sick; and if this was still too long and entailed too much strain upon the mind, the administration to those who are too ill to understand fully what they are doing is certainly not to be desired under any circumstances. "The holy communion is not to be treated as if it worked like a magical charm, without co-operation on the part of the recipient. In conclusion, after weighing carefully all that has been put before us," the archbishop said, "I am obliged to decide that the Church of England does not at present allow reservation in any form, and that those who think it ought to be allowed, though perfectly justified in endeavoring to get the proper authorities to alter the law, are not justified in practicing reservation until the law has been altered."

The judgment of the Archbishop of York coincided with that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, he saying that he could come to no other decision than that "the practice of reservation has no sanction in the Church of England at the present time, that it was deliberately abandoned at the time of the Reformation, and that it is not lawful for any individual clergyman to resume such practice in ministering to the souls committed to his charge."

The opinion of the Archbishop of Canterbury embodied some observations respecting fasting communion. Pleas were cited to the effect that it was a hardship to be required to consecrate the sacrament in private houses, since this can not always be done in the early part of the day, and to continue their fast till later is sometimes a serious strain. The archbishop quoted the remarks of St. Chrysostom as fairly representing the general mind of the Church in his day, when fasting communion had become almost universal. That divine treated fasting as not having any virtue of its own, but as a means to the end of making true repentance and amendment of life easier, and admitted bodily weakness as a reasonable plea for omitting a fast. Without taking a full meal, such moderate partaking of food as will relieve any serious strain would be fully consistent with any obligation that the early Christians recognized. For to diminish the usual quantity of food is to fast, even though the diminution does not amount to a total abstention.

Removal of Ornaments ordered.-In the case of the application of Mr. George Davey, a parishioner, for a faculty for the removal of illegal ornaments from the Church of the Annunciation, Brighton, Dr. Tristram, chancellor of the diocese of Chichester, in August, ordered the stations of the cross, confessional boxes and their adjuncts, holy water stoups, crucifixes, two "tabernacles " before which red lights were kept constantly burning, and images of the Good Shepherd, the Virgin Mary, and various saints removed within three months; failing which the petitioner would have authority to remove them himself.

A "Round-Table Conference."-In the London Diocesan Conference, in May, Prebendary Webb-Peploe moved a resolution to consider the desirability of appointing a "round table conference" in which all the parties in the ritualistic controversy might be represented and exchange and compare their views, the objects of the conference being, as defined in the resolution, to ascertain what agreement about principles exists, where difficulties begin, and what is their exact

nature. The resolution was prompted, the mover afterward explained, by special request and desire from those in authority; and in moving it he emphasized the fact that it was interrogatory and not affirmative, and spoke as with the conviction that the calling of a conference of the kind would be futile and absurd unless all the parties were bound by conditions of deference to the law as authoritatively declared. The motion was approved by the bishop and was supported by Lord Halifax. Afterward, in his president's address at the annual meeting of the English Church Union, June 21, Lord Halifax asked: "Is it possible for Christian men, realizing the effects of their divisions, not resolutely to determine to take any step which might hold out even the faintest hope of promoting union and peace? They could not sacrifice truth, but they could ascertain whether their differences were really as irreconcilable as they seemed. Prebendary Webb-Peploe had laid it down that such a conference could be held on the acceptance of God's Word and the formularies of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England in their plain meaning.' It was clear, therefore, that there was no question of a difference of first principles. On such a basis, with a careful definition of terms, a sufficient knowledge of theology and history on the part of those summoned to meet, and a charitable desire on the part of both sides to put the best possible construction on the explanations which might be offered, a great step might be taken in the direction of peace." But insistence on the acceptance of the judicial commission's decisions as an indispensable condition for entertaining the notion of a conference would make the conference impossible.

The Council of the Church Association, May 24, declared by resolution that it had read with feelings of profound regret the proposal to hold a "round table conference with representatives of the Romanizing party in the Church of England. "They desire publicly and explicitly," the resolution continued, "to dissociate themselves from any recognition of the possibility of finding a modus vivendi with Romanism. They regret also that any suggestion, either of slackening activity of action or of making a definite appeal to Parliament, which is now being so prosperously initi ated, should be even tolerated by professed friends of the Protestant cause. And they can not consent for a single moment to relax their own efforts in behalf of the Protestant principles of the Established Church which are being betrayed on a large scale by its own salaried servants."

It was

The "Round-Table Conference" was held at Fulham Palace, Oct. 10 to 13, for the discussion of the subject of The Doctrine of the Holy Communion and its Expression in Ritual. attended by Prebendary Barlow, Prof. H. E. J. Bevan, Dr. Bigg, the Rev. N. Dimock, Canon Gore, Prof. Moule, Canon Newbolt, Dr. A. Robertson, Canon J. A. Robinson, Prof. Sanday, Prebendary Wace, Mr. W. J. Birkbeck, Viscount Halifax, the Earl of Stamford, and Chancellor P. V. Smith. Dr. Wace was elected chairman. The meeting was private. The report of the proceedings was to be submitted to the Bishop of London, and would then, it was announced, probably be published by authority.

Prayers for the Dead.-A prayer for the dead having been included in a form of intercession which had been issued for use with reference to the South African war, a number of protests were made to the archbishops against the authorization of such a service. To some of these objections the Archbishop of Canterbury said that it had been decided at law that prayers for the dead were

not forbidden in the Church of England, but had been sanctioned by the Court of Arches in 1858. At a public meeting in connection with the National Protestant Church Union held at the Church House, March 30, to consider this subject and that of the confessional, resolutions were adopted declaring the admission of a prayer for the dead in the form of an intercession on behalf of her Majesty's troops in South Africa to be "unscriptural and contrary to the express mind of the Church in her public worship," and deploring "the mischief caused by the circulation of manuals advertising auricular confession and its practice among many of the clergy of the Church of England as one of the worst revivals of mediævalism."

To a protest by members of the National Protestant Church Union, presented by Prebendary Webb-Peploe, the archbishop replied, March 19, acknowledging that the prayer for the dead, not being found in the Prayer Book, could not be used by any clergyman without express authority, and could not be authorized by any bishop; but that the usual restraints did not apply to the form of prayer lately issued under the authority of her Majesty's Privy Council. "If it could be said that prayers for the dead, in whatever circumstances and whatever language expressed, are forbidden by the law of the Church of England, the order of the Council would certainly go beyond its powers, and ought not to have been made. But it is well known that this is not the case. The law has been clearly declared by the Court of Arches, and the question whether such a prayer should be used is not a question of law, but of expediency. On such a question different men will hold different opinions, and I regret that the opinion of the memorialists is different from mine. "We know why prayers for the dead were discontinued and discouraged at the time of the Reformation. They were bound up in the minds of the people with the Romish doctrine of purgatory and pardons, and this doctrine had led to such scandalous abuses-e. g., the sale of indulgences that the authorities were obliged to use very strong means in dealing with it. Prayers for the dead were therefore omitted altogether lest such prayers should keep alive the doctrine that had done so much mischief. And any prayers for the dead which implied this Romish doctrine have been and still are unquestionably unlawful. "It would have been easy to forbid such prayers altogether by putting in the words prayers for the dead' before the word 'purgatory in Article XXII, but this the Church stopped short of doing.

"I do not think it would be expedient to insert in the Prayer Book any prayer for the dead different in any way from the prayers already there. The constant use of such a prayer in the ordinary worship would, I think, be likely in course of time gradually to modify the teaching of the Church in ways that would not be wise.

"But this is a special and exceptional occasion. There are hundreds of sorrowing souls grieving over the sudden loss of friends and relations dearly loved. And the general emotion that thrills through the country adds to the keenness of their feelings. They have been praying for them daily, and pouring out their affection in their prayers. They know (it is common knowledge now) that prayers for the dead are not forbidden by the law of the Church of England. They ask whether some form of prayer can not be framed which will allow them to express their feelings.

"The objection that the blessed dead are so

happy that they can not receive any addition to their happiness can hardly be reconciled with the teaching of St. Paul. He tells the Thessalonians that on the last day, when the Lord Jesus will come again, God will bring with him those that sleep in Jesus. He tells them this to save them from sorrowing for the departed, and bids them comfort one another with these words. It is impossible to maintain that this does not imply that it will be a joy to us to be once more with them, and assuredly if so a joy to them to be once more with us. The whole spirit of this teaching is against the idea that the blessed dead are so happy that it is a matter of indifference to them whether we rejoin them or not. When we pray for reunion, our prayer is not for ourselves only, but for them also. And when any use the prayer of which you complain they pray that the departed in Christ Jesus may have what they certainly long for, and it is a comfort to many souls thus to express their confidence that those who have gone before them love them still.

Moreover, the form is a national form. It is right that on such an occasion, when the whole of England is invited to unite in prayer to God for his blessing on the national action, provision should be made as far as possible for every variety of feeling that exists within the land of the national Church, and that there should not be even the appearance of a desire to narrow the breadth and comprehensiveness of her tolerance. Five different forms of Litany are included, and this prayer is only in one of them, and no clergyman is asked to use the prayer to which the memorialists object.

"In conclusion, let me observe that the broad toleration which is the marked characteristic of our courts of law is true to the essential spirit of Protestantism. A church which, resting on the Bible, makes it not only the right, but the duty, of every Christian to satisfy his conscience concerning what the Bible teaches could not possibly hold together if the largest toleration consistent with what the Church has ordered be not allowed to all who endeavor to exercise this right and discharge this duty to the best of their power.”

Church Defense and Church Instruction.— The fourth annual meeting of the General Committee of Church Defense and Church Instruction was held at the Church House, March 30, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding. The report stated that only 200 sermons had been preached and only 100 offertories taken out of a total of nearly 14,000 benefices, in response to requests made to every beneficed clergyman in the country. The income showed a slight diminution. Resolutions were passed declaring the need for continued effort "to complete the organization of Church defense and Church instruction by the appointment of a committee, or at least a secretary, in every parish to co-operate with the diocesan and decanal secretaries for the arrangement of lectures, the distribution of literature, and the collection of funds necessary for the support of the work"; urging the vital importance of disseminating an accurate knowledge among all classes of society of the history and work of the national Church; expressing regret that no provision had been made in the census bill for a census of religious profession; and advising greater effort on the part of Church people to promote a larger representation of members of the Church of England among district councilors and guardians, with a view to the appointment of Episcopal chaplains to workhouses.

The Church Congress.-The fortieth Church Congress met at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sept. 25.