and Augmentation of Small Livings, containing a scheme for the sale of small advowsons, the patronage of which is vested in public bodies. After discussion, it was referred back. A resolution was adopted expressing the desire of the House that liberty should be given to the deans and chapters of the cathedrals of the new foundation to revise from time to time their statutes, with the consent of competent authority.

The Convocation met again for the dispatch of business on June 24th. Several days were spent in consideration of the revision of rubrics in respect to ornaments, the Athanasian Creed, and the burial service. A synodical declaration was decided upon to be appended to the Athanasian Creed, "for the removal of doubts and to prevent disquietude," which states that the creed "doth not make any addition to the faith as contained in Holy Scripture." A recommendation was adopted to the effect that in the burial service it shall be allowable, under certain circumstances, to read portions of Scripture and prayers from the Prayer-Book not at present included in the service. The following new rubric was agreed upon, to be placed immediately after the "ornainents rubric": "In saying public prayers and administering the sacraments and other rites of the Church, every priest shall wear a surplice with the stole or scarf and the hood of his degree; or, if he thinks fit, the gown, with hood or scarf; and no other vestments shall at any other time be used by him contrary to the monition of the Bishop of the diocese; provided always, that the rubric shall not be understood to repeal the 24th, 25th, and 58th canons of 1604." The schedule of proposed alterations of the rubrics in the Prayer-Book having been completed, a report of the business of revision in which the Convocation had been engaged for several years was ordered to be presented to her Majesty, with an address, in which it was submitted that in approving the accompanying alterations and recommendations, the Houses did not wish to be understood as inviting the sanction of the two Houses of Parliament to what was proposed until the draft bill presented with the report should have become a law.

The Convocation of York, at its session in July, declined to take any action on the ornaments rubric, every effort in that direction being defeated by the disagreement of the two houses. A similar result was reached in the propositions which were made to modify the use of the Athanasian Creed. A resolution was offered to the effect that no action of Convocation ought to diminish the frequency of the use of this creed. The Bishop of Durham offered an amendment proposing to change the rubric so as to make the use of the creed optional. Both motions were lost by disagreement. A motion favoring variations in the burial service, similar to those approved in the Convocation of Canterbury, was lost in both

houses. A resolution was passed unanimously, to the effect "that in the opinion of the Convocation it is inexpedient that any legislative sanction be sought for proposed amendments of the rubrics until the 'Bill to provide Facilities,' etc., agreed to by the Convocation of Canterbury July 4, 1879, which was previously in substance agreed to by the Lower House of Convocation of York 19th February, 1879, or some similar measure, had become law."

The Archbishop of Canterbury waited on the Home Secretary August 15th, and placed in his hands the report which had been agreed upon by both houses of the Convocation of Canterbury in answer to her Majesty's letter of business, on the subject of the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer. The report embodies a bill "to provide facilities for the amendment from time to time of the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England." In principle the bill recognizes that regulations respecting rites and ceremonies require to be revised from time to time, and that, as times, manners, and modes of thought change, old rules and customs must be changed to correspond. It recognizes, too, that in such changes the Church ought to take the initiative, and that the mouthpiece of the Church should be the archbishops and bishops of both provinces and the clergy by representation in the two Convocations. It recognizes, further, the necessity of the assent of the laity through Parliament to any alterations or additions to the Prayer-Book so initiated. The bill consists of eleven clauses, of which three are either explanatory or directive. The remaining eight provide that the archbishops, bishops, and clergy in both Houses of Convocation may prepare from time to time and lay before her Majesty in Council a scheme for making desirable alterations in the Prayer-Book. Any scheme so prepared is to be laid before both Houses of Parliament within twenty-one days of their meeting. Within forty days either House may address the Queen asking her Majesty to withhold her royal consent. If neither House present such address, her Majesty may make an order ratifying the scheme and specifying when it shall take effect.

A memorial from graduates of the universities and persons learned in history and archæology was prepared and addressed to the Home Secretary, asking him to advise her Majesty to take no further judicial action on the ritual reports of the Privy Council until certain historical misstatements, misquotations from, and interpolations in, important documents shall have been examined by learned men appointed by her Majesty for the purpose. Some of the misstatements are specified, such as the assertion that 1549 was the second year of Edward VI.; that the consecration prayer was omitted in 1552; that mixing wine and water apart from the service was unknown to East and West; that there are such documents in existence as the advertisements of

1564; the interpolation of the word "only" in the copies quoted in the reports; the assertion that surplice and alb were not worn concurrently" according to any known use; the assertion that Bishop Cosin held a visitation in 1687, fifteen years after his death, etc. Decisions based on such statements, they will urge, only bring the law into contempt.

The General Conference of Anglican Bishops which met at Lambeth in July, 1878, appointed a committee "to consider the relations between the Old Catholics and others who have separated themselves from the Roman Communion. To this committee the Archbishop of Canterbury referred a petition which he had received from the dissident French ecclesiastic M. Loyson, praying for official recognition of the Old Catholics by the Anglican Episcopate. Bishop Eden, Primus of Scotland, as chairman of this committee, in the latter part of 1878, addressed a letter to M. Loyson, saying that, in conjunction with the Bishop of Edinburgh, he would so far recognize his mission as to give it a provisional oversight. Under ordinary circumstances, he said, the English Episcopate must have declined the request; but the times were not ordinary, and the conduct of the Church of Rome in issuing the recent Vatican decrees seemed to the bishops to justify a departure from their customary usage, and to authorize them to recognize a principle of yet higher obligation than that of church order. It would be impossible, however, for the bishops to pledge themselves to the administration of episcopal functions in the mission until they had become acquainted with the proposed ritual and order of the Church; and they could then do so only in the event of the ritual "in its language and ceremonies containing nothing inconsistent with the Word of God, with the principles enunciated in our formularies, with the prerogatives of the One Divine head of the Church, or with the One Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus." (See OLD CATHOLICS.)

The case of the appeals of Lord Penzance, Dean of Arches, and of Mr. James Martin, the promoter of the suit of Martin vs. Mackonochie, against a judgment of the Lord Chief Justice making absolute a rule obtained on behalf of the Rev. Alexander H. Mackonochie, restraining all further proceedings in the suit, came before the High Court of Appeal in March. The proceedings against Mr. Mackonochie in the Court of Arches had lasted for four years, when in June, 1878, he was sentenced by Lord Penzance to three years' suspension from his benefice. A rule was obtained in the Queen's Bench for a prohibition, based on the ground that the monition which had been inflicted upon the appellant previous to his suspension was a sentence covering all the penalty awarded, and ended the case; that any further penalty must result from a new trial, and the sentence of suspension to which

the Court appealed against had proceeded could not be imposed without such new trial. In August, 1878, the prohibition was made absolute. The Solicitor-General, who appeared for Lord Penzance, in advocating the appeal, argued that the common-law courts had no authority over the ecclesiastical courts, supporting his position by citations from old writers on the subject when the authority of the spir itual courts was admittedly independent. The case was decided, June 28th, in favor of the appellants, three of the judges giving opinions in favor of reversing, two of sustaining the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, in giving his judg ment, reviewed all the circumstances of the case, and expounded the ecclesiastical laws and usages by which such cases as that before the Court were governed. He held that, both on the ground of reason and on the authorities he had looked into, such a monition as the one in question was perfectly allowable in a Court Christian, and that disobedience to such a monition might subject the offender to some form of punishment. It seemed to him that in this case suspension was warranted by the law and the practices of the ecclesiastical courts. The steps taken in this case were, to his mind, right; but, if he thought they were wrong, his conclusions as to the law and usage would be the same. He could not see the hardship of an officer of the Church being obliged to obey the law of his society, after the law had been declared to him by the highest authority in the country. He thought that Lord Penzance had not done more than he was called upon to do, and no more than what the practice of his Court justified, and he thought that that practice was not contrary to the Church Discipline Act. On the 15th of November Lord Penzance, in the Court of Arches, ordered the enforcement of the writ of prohibition which he had issued against Mr. Mackonochie in June, 1878, the operation of which had been suspended during the pendency of the appeals on the case. The writ involved a suspension of the ecclesiastical functions of Mr. Mackonochie for three years, beginning with the 23d of November. While granting it, Lord Penzance said that he would be willing to hear any application for a relaxation of sentence founded on a promise to obey the law. The Council of the Church Union determined on a policy of resistance to the judgment.

A prosecution was instituted against the Bishop of Oxford in January, requiring him to show cause why he should not institute proceedings of inquiry into charges which had been made under the Church Discipline Act against the Rev. Thomas T. Carter, rector of the parish of Clemer, for adopting ritualistic practices in worship. The Bishop appeared in person, February 27th, in the Court of Queen's Bench, and pleaded that the Church Discipline Act could not intend that he should be deprived of his right of discretion to grant or refuse a

commission; and that, if this right were taken away, grave injury would result to the Church from power being given to foolish, frivolous, or vindictive persons to set the law in motion. The Court decided, March 8th, that a mandamus should be issued directing the Bishop to issue a commission of inquiry. The Lord Chief Justice, in giving the judgment of the Court, said that two questions were raised by the proceedings: first, whether the language of the Church Discipline Act imposed a duty on the Bishop which he was bound to fulfill, or merely gave him a discretionary power which he might exercise or not at his option; and, secondly, whether the Church Discipline Act had been superseded by the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874. In regard to the meaning of the Church Discipline Act, it was a settled canon of construction that, where an act authorized the doing of a thing for the sake of justice and for the public good, the words "it shall be lawful" were to be read in a compulsory sense. The statute in question was passed with the view of enforcing the rights of parishioners to have the service of the parish church performed according to law, and the power given to the Bishop to issue a commission to inquire into the matter was certainly one to be exercised for the sake of justice and the public good. The statute had reference to the administration of justice in ecclesiastical offenses; and the maintenance of the doctrines and ritual of the established religion, for the uniformity of which so many acts have been passed, could not be other than a matter of national interest and concern. Moreover, it was the undoubted right of every inhabitant of every parish in the kingdom, who desired to frequent the parish church, to have the services performed according to the ritual established by law, without having his religious sense shocked and outraged by the introduction of innovations not sanctioned by law nor consistent with usage, and which appeared to him inconsistent with the simplicity of worship of the Church of England. Reading the whole of the act together, and looking at the state of the law previous to its being passed, their lordships were of the opinion that the act imposed a duty upon the Bishop which he might be compelled to exercise. Their lordships were further of opinion that the Church Discipline Act was still in force, and had not been superseded by the later act. The Bishop appealed against this decision to the Supreme Court of Appeal, which decided, May 30th, in his favor, reversing the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench. The decision was given by Lord Justice Bramwell, who held that prima facie the words "it shall be lawful," in the third section of the Church Discipline Act, constituted a discretion. In the present case, he thought, the discretion had been erroneously exercised.

The eightieth anniversary meeting of the Church Missionary Society was held in LonVOL. XIX.-3 A

don, May 5th. The total available income of the Society for the year had been £187,235, and the total expenditure had been £204,186. The total deficit for the last two years, which had to be taken from the Society's working capital, was £24,757. The sum of £35,000 had been deposited with the Society in trust for the development of an evangelistic native agency in connection with the native churches in India, and £10,601 had been given for other special objects, making the whole amount intrusted to the Society during the year £232,836. Fifteen qualified laborers had been accepted for the work of the Society, and fourteen others had been accepted as suitable to be trained in the missionary college.

The Board of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in November, 1878, adopted a resolution altering the rule respecting the examination of candidates, so that candidates selected by a colonial bishop or his commissioner need not be required to pass the Board of Examiners. The resolution was regarded as being in the interest of ritualism, since the immediate occasion of its being offered had been the rejection of a candidate by the Board of Examiners on the ground, as was alleged, of his being a member of the Society of the Holy Cross; and dissatisfaction was excited among officers and members of the Society by its passage. The Bishops of Gloucester and Bristol and of Peterborough declared that they would resign their offices as Vice-Presidents of the Society if it were not rescinded; and animated discussions were had over it at the meetings of the Board. At a meeting of the Society held February 2, 1879, the resolution in question was rescinded, and a committee was appointed to consider the by-laws bearing upon the subject and all matters affecting their working.

The annual meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was held in London, April 29th. The Archbishop of Canterbury presided. The receipts of the Society had been £145,223, or about £3,000 less than the receipts of the previous year. There had been employed during the year, in various fields of labor, 567 missionaries, as follows: In Asia, 135; in Africa, 121; in Australia and the Pacific, 61; in America and the West Indies, 248; in Europe, 2. The force of the Society also included about 1,200 catechists and lay teachers, mostly natives in heathen countries, and about 250 students in colleges abroad.

The Rev. Dr. Baring, Bishop of Durham, having resigned his office in consequence of illness, an address was sent him by 531 of the clergy of the diocese, in which it was stated that during his eighteen years' administration of the diocese 119 new churches and 188 parochial schools had been erected, 130 churches and chapels of ease restored, 102 new parishes formed and endowed, and 186 added to the number of the parochial clergy. The Rev.

Joseph Barker Lightfoot, Canon of St. Paul's and Margaret, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, was nominated to be the new Bishop of the diocese, was duly elected by the Dean and Chapter, and was consecrated Bishop at Westminister Abbey, April 25th. The new Bishop was born in Liverpool, is a little more than fifty years of age, was graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1851, and is one of the most distinguished Biblical scholars in the English Church.

Bishop Samuel Gobat of Jerusalem died May 11th. The Bishop of this diocese is appointed under a joint arrangement of the British and Prussian Governments, by the terms of which he is designated by either alternately. The appointment of the successor of Bishop Gobat falling to the British Government, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Barclay, rector of Stapleton, Herts, was made Bishop. The new Bishop had already spent ten years in Jerusalem as examining chaplain to Bishop Gobat, whereby he had acquired a close acquaintance with the East. He is versed in the Hebrew, Arabic, and German languages, and has translated and prepared commentaries on parts of the Talmud.

The Right Rev. Dr. Reginal Courtney, Bishop of Kingston, Jamaica, having resigned his office, to take effect in April, 1879, the Right Rev. George William Tozer was appointed Bishop of Kingston in August. Bishop Tozer was for several years Anglican Missionary Bishop of Zanzibar, but retired from that position in 1873 on account of his health.

The fourteenth annual report of the Council of the Church Association was made in March, 1879. Thirty-three branches had been formed during the year, and the whole number of branches was now 358. Branches of the Association had been established at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Montrose, in Scotland. In accordance with the object of the Association, which is the maintenance of Protestant principles in the Church of England, organized operations were being made throughout the country to bring the subject of ritualism before candidates for Parliament at the coming election.

The annual meeting of the English Church Union was held at Hereford, August 21st. The annual report and the address of the President of the meeting, Major Thomas Palmer of Hereford, represented that the Union and the principles it represented were gaining ground. Thirty years ago, it was claimed, crosses, surpliced choirs, candles, etc., were ruled out; now they had all these. The people in attendance at their churches and the number of communicants had increased, and the observance of the services appertaining to Lent had been more numerous. Resolutions were passed, stating that the Union regarded with surprise and alarm the decision of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and some of the bishops, to displace the Athanasian Creed from its present position in the Prayer-Book, and that it should be left as it is; that the Union disapproved of the

action of the Lower House of Convocation in the matter of the ornaments rubric, and they were astonished that the House should accept an addition which contradicts the rubric itself; and that the Union will do all it can to prevent any alteration in the Prayer-Book, as dangerous to the interests of the Church. The holding of a mass meeting in London in November was advised.

The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament is an association for propagating the doctrine of the real presence in the Lord's Supper, for promoting the administration of that ordinance with a full ritual, the offering of prayers for the dead, the increase of daily celebrations, the receiving of the sacraments for the sick and dying, and auricular confession. According to the report for 1878, 61 priests had been enrolled as members during the year, 53 had withdrawn, and the whole number of priests associate was 933; 759 lay associates had been admitted, 47 had withdrawn, and the whole number of lay associates was about 10,563; making the total of members in England 11,499. Twenty-one new wards had been formed in England, one in India, one in Canada, and one in South Africa, while six wards had been discontinued; and there were now 147 English and eight colonial wards. The "Intercession" paper was regularly issued, 10,500 copies being required each month. The income of the Society had been £1,161, and its expenditures £892.

A new society, called the Church and Stage Guild, has been established in connection with the Church of England, with the object of promoting religious and social sympathy between the members of the Church and the stage.

The annual meeting of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control was held in London, April 30th. The expenditures of the Society for the year had been £13,249, after defraying which a balance of £579 was left in the treasury. About eight hundred meetings had been held in England, Scotland, and Wales, and 3,148,000 publications had been circulated. The report dwelt upon the advance which had been made in the cause which the Society was intended to promote, as shown in the movement for the disestablishment of the Scottish Church, in which the Society cooperated; the agitation on the subject of burials, in the case of which it was claimed that the principles insisted upon by Mr. Osborne Morgan had been acquiesced in in the bill of Mr. Balfour; and other events. The scheme for the endowment of an Irish Roman Catholic University would meet with strenuous opposition. Resolutions were passed expressing confidence in the success of the movement for disestablishment in Scotland, commending the question of disestablishment to the support of electoral constituencies, and urging preparation to oppose the project to establish a Roman Catholic University in Ireland. Resolutions were passed at the public

meeting referring with satisfaction to the tendency of ecclesiastical litigation "to convince the members of the Church that legal coercion is not a fit instrument for the attainment of spiritual ends, and that the advantages of an establishment can not be enjoyed with out sacrificing the peace and freedom of the Church," and expressing the hope, in the prospect of the coming general election, "that the friends of religious equality will not fail to press upon the electoral bodies the expediency of putting an end to state interference with religion, and also that in England, no less than in Scotland, there will be a firm determination to secure the early abolition of the Scottish establishment."

The Church Congress met at Swansea, October 7th. The Bishop of St. David's, the diocese in which the meeting was held, presided. In his opening address he counseled the avoidance of the danger of making the Congress the battle-ground of different classes of thought in the Church. The subjects discussed on the first day's session were: The missionary work of the Church among the Jews and in India; "The Causes of and Remedy for Dissent"; "Home Reunion"; "Higher and Intermediate Education in Wales"; "How can the Church best gain and retain its Influence over the Young?" and "Church Work among the Seafaring Population." The Bishop of Winchester, President of the Home Reunion Society, opened the discussion on the causes for dissent and its remedy. He traced the history of nonconformity, and sketched the principles on which it should be met. The chief of the remedies which he proposed were: that the Church should not be looked upon as a sect, but as a world-wide society, meant to include in it all who accept Christ as their King; that party spirit and partisan language should be avoided; that mixing of religion with politics should be shunned; that lay work should be increased and lay counsel sought; that a lower order of clergy be enlisted as a permanent diaconate; that what are called irregular devotional services should be encouraged, or at least fully tolerated, and that more missionary and evangelizing labor should be secured, both at home and abroad. The programme of discussions was continued during the succeeding days with papers and addresses on the subjects of "The Maintenance of Voluntary Schools, and the best Means of promoting Religious Education in them and in Board Schools"; "Diocesan Synods and Conferences"; "Church Temperance work"; "Parish Organization," with reference to rich and poor town parishes, and compact and scattered country parishes; "The Church in Wales"; "Ecclesiastical Courts and Final Court of Appeal"; "Religious Benefits from recent Scientific Research." On the subject of religious education in the schools, the opening paper, by Canon Melville, advocated a religious basis in instruction, and mentioned an increase in the number of schools which

had adopted the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles' Creed as bases of such instruction. In relation to Ecclesiastical Courts, Dr. Phillimore proposed a reform in the organization of the Courts, under which the Church should be given a voice in the appointment of its bishops and archbishops; these officers should sit as judges canonically with the assistance of their clergy, with their chancellors as assessors, and with representatives of the laity to concur; the appeal to be to the synod of the province presided over by the Metropolitan, and, if further appeal be required, to the synod of the whole Anglican Communion. Such a reform, he thought, need not be incompatible with establishment. The discussion of the subject of the Church in Wales bore reference to the difficulties of bilingual parishes and the special education and training of the clergy. The Dean of Bangor showed that, out of a million people speaking the Welsh language, eight hundred thousand are attached more or less closely to the Congregational, Baptist, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, and other chapels. He maintained that the Church had lost its hold on the Welsh people through the indifference it had shown to them; and that, if it would recover them, it must have more earnest and devoted men capable of speaking to them in their own tongue.

Questions concerning the means of securing more friendly relations with nonconformists were considered at the meetings of several of the diocesan synods in October. At the Diocesan Conference of Manchester, a resolution was adopted expressing a desire to promote a friendly recognition of dissenters who would meet Churchmen on the ground of a common Christianity, and an earnest wish to cultivate friendly relations with them and to cooperate with them on any possible platforms of Christian work; further, that "in the opinion of this Conference it is desirable that the Convocation of this province (York) should consider the question of the comprehension of nonconformists with a view to devising the best means of terminating our dissensions and establishing essential unity, and working harmony between all sections of earnest Christian people in the land." The Synod of Peterborough resolved "that in full recognition of the sin and scandal of divisions among Christians, and in humble consciousness that they have been fomented and encouraged by many shortcomings on the part of the English Church, this Conference would hail with the utmost satisfaction any proposals toward home reunion without compromising scriptural truth and apostolic order; and that, while unable to perceive that the time has arrived for formal communications between the authorities of the Church and delegates from nonconformists, it is of opinion that special attention should be directed to a possible concordat with Wesleyan Methodists."

The Representative Body of the Irish Episcopal Church had at the beginning of 1879 a