Church of England, instead of disappearing, seemed to be magnified. Then, across the Atlantic, anxious as he should be to unite with the three million persons who belonged to the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, still, as a Christian man who desired the diffusion of the Lord's word, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there were some thirty million persons, speaking, too, the English tongue, and who were Christians, but not members of any Episcopal Church, with whom union might be sought. On the Continent of Europe, their forefathers had coöperated with vast numbers of persons who were now, from one circumstance or another, more or less estranged. The Swedish and Danish Churches were examples of these. And, if he could not understand why no union was sought with these churches, still less could he understand why the great church of Luther, to which England owed so much, was to be considered as less connected with England than it was considered possible for the English Church to be connected with the Eastern Church. He should be very sorry to have it supposed that, while the Church of England desired to coöperate with Christians of the far East, she was neglectful of her more intimate relations with her fellowChristians of the West. The resolution of the Bishop of Winchester was adopted. His grace the President was requested by resolution to appoint a joint committee of both Houses "to consider what steps can be taken toward making provision for clergymen who, from age and infirmity, are desirous of resigning their benefices, and retiring from the active duties of the ministry." In the course of the debate on this resolution, the statement was made that the number of benefices in England and Wales was 13,000, and the number of clergymen, of all degrees, was 23,000. Estimating the number of clergymen having no cure of souls, as masters of schools, etc., at 2,000, there were left 21,000 clergymen proper, beneficed and unbeneficed; showing that 7,000 clergymen, or one-third of the whole, were unbeneficed. In the Lower House, the report of the committee on "The Law of Burials" was made. It suggested an outline of the procedure to be adopted in case Parliament should pass a law declaring the churchyards open for interment without religious services, or with services other than that of the Church of England.

The Convocation of Canterbury met again May 9th. A petition, numerously signed, was presented in the Upper House, asking that their lordships would take such measures as they deemed best to attest the soundness of the agreement or scheme of concord arrived at at the Bonn Conference in August, 1875, and, if possible, to promote further friendly relations and closer intercommunion with the Orthodox Churches of the East. The archbishop stated that he had received a letter from the presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, asking that, in the event

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of a gathering of bishops from all parts of the world, this subject should be brought before them. He had also received a letter from the Bishop of Pittsburg, suggesting that commendatory letters be given to emigrants to the United States, introducing them to the pastors of Episcopal churches in the towns where they might settle. By this means many would be prevented being drawn away from the influences of their church. The principal subject considered was that of providing a service of burial for those who died unbaptized. The Lower House adopted a resolution that it was not advisable to provide for such cases by any rubric in the Book of Common Prayer, but suggested that a service of consolation and instruction for the friends of the deceased might be used immediately after the interment, the service being selected from the Holy Scripture and the Book of Common Prayer. Houses finally agreed to a resolution providing that in the cases of persons who die unbaptized or excommunicate, or in the commission of any grievous crime, "it shall be lawful for the minister, at the request or with the consent of the kindred or friends of the deceased, to permit the corpse to be committed to the grave in the churchyard or chapel-yard of the parish without any services," and that "in such cases the incumbent may permit the use at the grave of such hymns as may be approved by him." A petition was received from 14,000 working-men, asking for liberty for the clergy to conduct the services of the church without obedience to the Privy Council. A committee was provided for to inquire into the law authorizing clergymen to repel persons from the Holy Communion on the ground of their holding false doctrines or leading immoral lives, and to report if any further legislation was necessary. A committee was also appointed to inquire into and report upon the ancient rites and ceremonies appertaining to the Christian burial of the dead, and the discipline attached to the use of them.

The Convocation of Canterbury met for the third time during the year, July 18th. The Lower House adopted a resolution to have the synodical declaration respecting the import of the "damnatory clauses" of the Athanasian Creed, which was passed at a previous session of the Convocation, appended to that creed in the Prayer Book. The following rubric in reference to the communion service was adopted: "When there is a communion a pause shall here be made, during which those who desire may withdraw, and the communicants may be conveniently placed for receiving the communion." It was left to the discretion of the minister whether the pause should be made before the offertory services or after the prayer for the Church militant. In the Lower House a resolution was passed in reference to the burial service, providing that "it shall be lawful for the minister, at the request or with the consent of the kindred or friends of the de

ceased, to permit the corpse to be committed to the grave in the churchyard of the parish without hymn, anthem, or address of any kind." The Upper House had voted that hymns should be permitted at the grave. A conference of the two houses was held, with a view to the adjustment of the difference between them on this point, but without success. A gravamen was signed by members of both houses deploring the barbarities alleged to have been exercised by the Mohammedans toward the Christians in Bulgaria, and the asserted sale of Christian children into slavery, and praying "that effectual steps will be taken by the Government, in conjunction with the Porte and others, to prevent, as far as possible, such grievous scandal and offense to Christendom and the civilized world." The Committee on Intemperance presented a supplementary report to the effect that the time had come when Parliament might properly be urged to take into consideration the further regulation of the traffic in intoxicating drinks, and suggesting that new legislation ought to embrace some or all of the following points:

The extinction of grocers' excise licenses; the gradual suppression of houses for the sale of beer to be consumed on the premises; the gradual reduction of the number of public-houses until a limit shall have been reached which shall correspond to the wants of a temperate population; a large restriction of hours for Sunday traffic, together with some measure for country places for earlier closing at night and earlier opening in the morning; and the admission of the principle of local control so far as to give the inhabitants of any locality some voice in the question of granting new licenses, of reducing the number of houses, of Sunday closing, of earlier or later opening, and of earlier closing on weekdays.

The Convocation of York met in York Cathedral, February 15th. It considered the fourth report of the Ritual Commission. The Upper House rejected the addition to the Athanasian Creed in the form of a synodical declaration which had been agreed to in 1874 by the Convocation of Canterbury and the Lower House of the Convocation of York. (For the text of this declaration, see the ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA for 1874.)

At the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, January 19th, a special court was constituted for the hearing of an appeal from the Arches Court of Canterbury, in the case of Jenkins vs. the Rev. Flavel Smith Cook, rector of Christ Church, Clifton. In this case the question was raised whether a parishioner could be legally refused the Holy Communion because he did not believe in the personality of Satan and evil spirits, and the doctrine of eternal punishment. Mr. Jenkins had several years before compiled a book of selections from the Bible for devotional uses, from which were omitted all allusions to the doctrines of the existence of the devil and eternal punishment. On July 5, 1874, Mr. Cook preached a sermon on "Rationalism," to which Mr. Jenkins took exceptions, and against which he

wrote the minister a letter of protest. Mr. Cook then gave Mr. Jenkins warning that he would consider a depraver of the Book of Common Prayer a hinderer and slanderer of God's word, and "open and notorious evil liver," and would refuse to administer the communion to him. Mr. Jenkins, after having been refused the communion several times, brought suit against Mr. Cook in the ecclesiastical courts. The lower courts sustained the vicar, and Mr. Jenkins appealed to her Majesty in Privy Council. The judgment of the latter court was given February 15th, and reversed the decisions of the lower courts. Their lordships held that the evidence did not sustain the allegation that the appellant entertained the doctrines attributed to him, and expressly declared that they did not mean to decide that those doctrines were otherwise than inconsistent with the formularies of the Church of England.

The only cause, they said, which will warrant a minister under the rubric in repelling a parishioner from the Holy Communion is that he is an "open and notorious evil liver," who thereby gives offense to the congregation; and the only cause which will warrant his repulsion under the 27th canon is that he is a 66 common and notorious depraver of the therefore, to consider whether the appellant came Book of Common Prayer." It became necessary, under both or either of these descriptions. As to the first, there was absolutely no evidence whatever that the appellant was an evil liver, much less an open and notorious evil liver. The term "evil liver," according to the natural use of the words, was limited to moral conduct, and the distinction between conduct and belief was clearly recognized in the canons, especially in the contrast between the 109th and 110th. As to the charge against the appellant of being a depraver of the Book of Common Prayer, this was founded on the fact of his having published a book of selections from the Bible for reading at family prayer, from which certain parts were omitted, as was alleged, on the ground of the doctrine which they teach; and it was argued that, as some of the parts so omitted were either found in the Book of Common Prayer or were the support of doctrines found in that book, omission of them was equivalent to rejection, and rejection of them to depravation of the Book of Common Prayer. In none of these propositions nor in their logical connection could their lordships concur. Omission was not rejection, otherwise the lectionary in the Prayer Book would be open to the grave charge. Nor was it possible to establish the charge of depravation upon these omissions, even coupled with the letter written by the appellant to the respondent in justification of them. For even if there were anything in the letter which amounted to a depravation of the Book of Common Prayer, which their lordships did possible to hold that the writing of such a letter in not suggest or think there was, it would be still imanswer to one addressed to him by the respondentin other words, not an open and spontaneous, but a private, friendly, and solicited communicationcould make the appellant a "common and notorious would therefore advise her Majesty to reverse the depraver of the Book of Common Prayer." They sentence of the Dean of Arches, and in remitting the cause to admonish the respondent, the Rev. Flavel Smith Cook, for having without lawful cause appellant to receive, the elements of the Holy Comrefused to deliver to the appellant, or permit the munion; and further, to monish him to refrain from committing the like offense in future.

In May, 1874, a daughter of the Rev. Henry Keet, a Wesleyan minister at Owston Ferry, county of Lincoln, died, and was buried in the parish churchyard. Mr. Keet ordered a tombstone set up over her grave, to bear an inscription, "In loving memory of Annie Augusta Keet, the younger daughter of the Rev. H. Keet, Wesleyan minister, who died at Owston Ferry, May 11, 1874, aged seven years and nine months. Safe sheltered from the storms of life." The vicar of the parish forbade the erection of the stone on the ground that in the inscription the term "Rev." was improperly assumed by Mr. Keet, a person not in the orders of the Church of England, and having therefore no right to bear it. Mr. Keet appealed to the Bishop of Lincoln. The bishop sustained the vicar. Mr. Keet then brought suit in the court of the chancellor of the diocese for a faculty for the erection of the tombstone. The chancellor gave a judgment refusing to issue the faculty, and sustaining the decision of the vicar, that Mr. Keet had no right to use the title Reverend. Mr. Keet then appealed to the Court of Arches. This court reaffirmed the decision of the diocesan court. The case was then carried by appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The judgment of this court was delivered by the Lord Chancellor, January 21, 1876. It reversed the decisions of the lower courts, and ordered a faculty issued for the erection of the tombstone. The case was remitted to the Court of Arches.

The first proceedings taken under the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, were had in the case of a complaint brought by three parishioners of St. Peter's, Folkestone, against the Rev. C. J. Ridsdale, incumbent of the parish. The complainants charged the defendant with violations of ecclesiastical order in the following points: Using lighted candles on the communion-table during the time of the celebration of the Holy Communion when their use was not necessary for giving light; the mixing of water with the wine for the service of the communion; the use of wafer bread in the communion; standing during the administration of the communion in the eastward position, with his back to the people; kneeling during the prayer of consecration, and singing the hymn Agnus Dei; walking in processions with ornaments and observances not sanctioned by the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer; wearing illegal vestments, as the chasuble and the alb; the use of the crucifix; the adoption in the church of the representations called the "Stations of the Cross;" and administering the communion to only one person. Mr. Ridsdale made no defense to any of the charges except that of administering the communion to fewer than three or four persons. In regard to this, he said that he had entered upon the service "without any positive expectation one way or the other." Lord Penzance gave judgment in the

case, February 2d, against the defendant. He decided that the incumbent had offended against the law in officiating in the chasuble and alb; that he had also offended in administering the communion without having assured himself that the number of persons required by the rubric, "four, or three at least,' would participate in it; that the so-called Stations of the Cross, which were described as consisting of fourteen groups of "figures in colored relief, a plastic figure attached to the walls of the church, purporting to represent scenes of our Lord's Passion, and such as are commonly used in Roman Catholic churches," were decorations forbidden by law; and that the erection of the crucifix, "or figure of the Saviour on the cross in full relief," was unlawful. The judgment of the court on the points as to the position at the communion-table, and as to the vestments, was modified by the admission that the decisions of the superior courts on these points were conflicting, and an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council might be necessary. An appeal was taken by the defendant to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the four points of the eastward position of the minister at the communion service, the vestments to be worn, the form of bread to be used, and the exhibition of the crucifix in the communion service.

The eighteenth annual session of the Church Congress was held at Plymouth, beginning October 3d. The opening sermons were preached by the Bishop of Winchester and the Rev. Canon Miller. The opening address was delivered by the Bishop of Winchester. He spoke of the character of the Congress, as in no sense representing the whole Church, but consisting rather to a disproportionate extent of men of extreme views; of the peculiar dangers to which it was exposed by reason of such men occupying its attention; and of the safeguards against such dangers, which lay in the Congress itself. If they were avoided, the meetings might be made productive of great benefit. Papers were read, and discussions had, during the meetings of the Congress, on the following topics: "The Bonn Conference and the Old Catholic Movement" (Bishop Perry, late of Melbourne, the Dean of Lichfield, and the Rev. Lord Plunkett); "The Formation and Management of Parochial Temperance Societies;" "The Causes and Influences of Unbelief in England" (Dean Cowie, of Manchester, Archdeacon Reichel, the Rev. G. Greenwood, Dean Lake, of Durham, Archdeacon Denison, the Bishop of Winchester); "Central Africa, in Relation to Mission-Work, the Slave-Trade, and Commerce" (Sir Bartle Frere, the Rev. W. S. Price, Lieutenant Cameron, Arthur Mills, M.P., Archdeacon Badnall, and others); "How to increase the Number and improve the Training of Candidates for Holy Orders" (the Rev. W. S. Smith, Archdeacon Earle, Archdeacon Emery); "The Best Means to be adopted for