of bringing home to the lonely sufferers the power of the Communion of Saints.

'A member of the one great family in heaven and earth has a share in all its prayers and Sacraments, and the more she realises this, and feels the blessing of this membership, the less will she feel set aside from communion with her kind; the less will thoughts of self and self only engross her mind; the less solitary will she feel in her sick room.'-An Invalid's Day, p. 41.

Nor is it merely a matter of personal happiness. The invalid portion of the Church can be actually a great force. The theory of the religious life is that the 'hermits blest and holy maids' pray for the needs of the Church militant, and intercede for the sinful world. Our invalids are recluses of God's own making. Even if they meet not face to face, they can agree on earth what they shall ask of God in heaven.

'Thousand sympathetic hearts
Together swelling high

Their chant of many parts.'

And if there be, as suggested, fixed devotions for certain hours, not compulsory, but dependent on the power of the patient, his brother's prayer' will not be 'unknown to each,' and who can tell the strength and power before God of such united supplication? There are many who, like the late Anne Mackenzie-one of the most wonderful of invalid workerswelcome a period of severer sickness, 'because they have so many to pray for,' and they would assuredly hail the means of so interceding in concert. Do we not know of answers to prayer, such as Bishop Patteson's deliverance from wreck, while his former governess was praying for him at midnight? Mr. Brinckman, a chaplain of some years standing, tells us he has seen effects of prayers and Sacraments that a Roman Catholic would have claimed as miraculous, and that would have removed in his mind any doubt (if he had ever had any) of their efficacy and supernatural force. It is surely our bounden duty to make fresh efforts for the extension of the Church's full blessings and privileges to those who, without being in a state of imminent danger, may, if left to themselves or to indifferent friends, waste years in a mournful, useless, almost heathenish loneliness, instead of being awakened to the full sense of the blessings, the powers, the influence given by the fact of being the one in the family who 'goes on before' bearing the cross in the steps of the Saviour; and the sick room, instead of being dreaded and avoided, may become the

centre of home, the place for seeking love, sympathy, and counsel.

We are not bound to speak of the details, or how the plan is to be carried out, but we strongly recommend clergy, invalids, and those concerned with them, to consider the subject brought forward in the books here noticed.

ART. VII.—DIOCESAN SYNOD, OR CONFERENCE, OR BOTH?

1. Diocesan Synods and Diocesan Conferences; their distinct Character and different Uses. An Address delivered in the Diocesan Synod held in the Cathedral Church of Lincoln, on Wednesday, September 20, 1871. By CHR. WORDSWORTH, D.D., Bishop of Lincoln.

1871.)

(London,

2. The Laity counselling the Church; or, Diocesan Conferences. A Charge delivered at his third Visitation, May 23, 1878. By JAMES AUGUSTUS HESSEY, D.C.L., Archdeacon of Middlesex. (London, 1878.)

3. A History of the Christian Councils. By the Right Rev. CHARLES JOSEPH HEFELE, D.D., Bishop of Rottenburg. Translated from the German, and edited by WILLIAM R. CLARK, M.A., Prebendary of Wells, and Vicar of Taunton. Second Edition. (Edinburgh, 1872.)

4. The Councils of the Church, A.D. 51—381. By the Rev. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. (John Henry Parker, Oxford, 1857.) 5. Sanctissimi Domini nostri Benedicti Papæ XIV. de Synodo Diocesana Libri tredecim. (Venetiis, MDCCLXXV.)

6. Concilia Magna Britanniæ et Hiberniæ, a Synodo Verolamiensi A.D. CCCCXLVI, ad Londinensem A.D. CIƆIƆCCXVII. Accedunt. Constitutiones et alia ad Historiam Ecclesiæ Anglicana spectantia. A DAVID WILKINS, S.T.P., Archidiacono Suffolciensi et Canonico Cantuariensi, collecta. (Londini, 1736–1737.)

AMONG the many striking and hopeful characteristics of the great Church revival of this age, the general conciliar movement is not the least striking or hopeful. Wonderful, indeed, beyond all forecasting, and surpassing the visions of the most sanguine faith, have been the fruits of that great outburst

of religious life and energy that took place five-and-forty years ago. Not only here and there, or in this or that branch only of the Church's work, but everywhere we see sure tokens of true life-the work of His hand, who 'maketh the wilderness a standing water, and watersprings of a dry ground.' 1

And what shall we say of the Church Councils and Conferences that within a few years have sprung up, where before there was nothing of the kind-Ruridecanal Chapters and Conferences, Church Congresses, Diocesan Synods, Diocesan Conferences, Convocations and so-called 'Pan-Anglican ' Synods? Do these yield in importance to any other part of the great Church revival? Does it not seem as if on these the permanence and progress of the revival itself, the character it will develop, the turn it will take, as time goes on, must, from the nature of the case, depend? Look at the work the Church has to do in such a complex state of society as this of ours in England in this nineteenth century, the new problems that are continually cropping up for solution, the fresh difficulties that have to be faced. How is it possible in such a state of things to have, without counsel, either mature judgment or united action? In such a work, in such a body, individual zeal, if untempered and unrestrained by common counsel, tends to strife and party spirit, and but for some extraordinary and overruling Providence of God must end in division.

Times of difficulty and danger have always, when the Church has been faithful to her trust, been times of counsel. The spirit of counsel is one of the seven-fold gifts of God the Holy Ghost, and, therefore, it is only by faithful use of this gift that the Church can hope either to keep the faith whole and undefiled, or to apply the unchanging principles of the eternal truth to the ever changing conditions of human society. Was there division in the primitive Church about circumcision and the keeping of the law of Moses? The apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.' 2 Were the faithful in Asia Minor in the second century troubled at the strange and impious teaching of Montanus? 'They came together,' Eusebius informs us, 'many times, and in many places, to consult on the subject.' Had the Church, in the third century, to deal with Novatianism, the treatment of the lapsed, the baptism of heretics, the heresy of Paul of Samosata, and other great difficulties and grievances? It was in Synods she sought and found her 3 Euseb. v. 16.

1 Ps. cvii. 35.

2 Acts xv. 6.

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remedy. Was the whole Church in the fourth century scandalised at the Godhead of the ever-blessed Son of God being called in question, and at its being said to be a matter of indifference whether He were believed to be of one substance or only of like substance with the Father?-318 bishops assembled in Synod at Nicæa, and declared the faith as they had one and all received it. And in our own day and Church, when the strict truth of the 'one baptism for the remission of sins' was called in question by a judgment of the Judicial Committee, the Church spoke through a Synod of the Diocese immediately affected,1 and declared her unwavering adherence to that article of the Nicene Creed. 'It was as inevitable,' wrote one immediately after that Synod, 'that the Hampden and Gorham outrage should lead to the attempted revival of Church Synods as that wintry weather should bring warm clothing into use.' 2

3

But it is not only in great crises of the Church's life, and in face of grievous scandals, that Synods have had their place: they have also been her ordinary judicial and legislative organs. No sooner had the conversion of Constantine removed the chief obstacle to their assembling than the Council of Nicæa ordered that 'in each province a Synod should be held twice a year, composed of all the bishops of the province.' This is for purposes of discipline; that sentences passed by individual bishops may be examined by the Provincial Synod, and, if approved, recognised throughout the province, and, also, that care may be taken to see that the bishops had not passed the sentence of excommunication from narrow-mindedness, from a love of contradiction, or from some feeling of hatred.' The fourth Council of Carthage ordains that the bishop is not to hear the cause of any save in the presence of his clergy, else the bishop's sentence will be invalid, unless it be confirmed by the presence of the clergy.' 4 And what is the whole body of the Canon Law but the accumulated utterances of the Church on the manifold questions connected with her faith, discipline, and worship, on which she has had from time to time to speak authoritatively?

'4

6

The silence of the voice of counsel bodes no good to a Church. 'During the unhappy reign of William Rufus there was no ecclesiastical Synod, and nothing went right.' 5 In the

1 The Exeter Diocesan Synod, held June 25, 26, 27, A.D. 1851.
2 Keble's Occasional Papers and Reviews, p. 254.
3 Can. 5.

4 Can. 23.

5 Johnson's English Canons, vol. ii. p. 23, A.C.L.

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account S. Anselm gives of the Synod he was at last able to hold at Westminster, in 1102, he expressly says that 'owing to the observance of Synods having been given up for many years past, the thorns of vices had sprung up, and Christian zeal had grown cold.' But, most unhappily, there has been a much later and much longer silence of the voice of counsel, the fruits of which are even now too plainly visible. From 1717 to 1850 there was no ecclesiastical Synod, and, alas! how few things went right. The Church seemed to have lost the sense of her corporate character as the body of Christ. The battle for the faith with Deists and Atheists was nobly fought, but it was fought by individuals rather than by the Church. The Church's children in the United States had to seek their first bishop from Scotland, because the English prelates stood in such servile fear of the State as to decline to give them one. A religious revival arose that might have proved the very salt of the Church: but she was unable to assimilate or direct it, and in spite of the intentions and labours of its originators the revival drifted into a deplorable schism. There was a later revival; but by a just retribution it seemed blind to the real nature of Church membership, and to the organic workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church. Dwelling too exclusively on personal piety and individual salvation, it made so little of our being called in one body that its natural tendency was towards Dissent. 'Sauve qui peut' was its motto, and as no visible city of refuge was pointed out, or, may be, even believed in, what wonder that those who listened to the warning cry fled this way and that, and did not make the Church appear before the world 'fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.'

, 2

At the very time, too, when common counsel and combined efforts were most needed; when, owing to the sudden development of our manufactures, the population became massed in towns in numbers almost incredible, there was the same terrible want of corporate action. It was a time when ' every man did that which was right in his own eyes;'3 and a parish priest, however devoted to his work, felt himself alone, and was subject to all the chilling, disheartening influences of isolation. What wonder that large portions of our large towns were speedily heathenised. When a Committee of the House of Lords, on the motion of Bishop Philpotts of Exeter, inquired into the spiritual destitution of our populous 1 As above, vol. ii. p. 24. 2 Song of Solomon vi. 10. 3 Judges xxi. 25.