in mining districts. The total increase in the incomes of benefices thus resulting from the operations of the commissioners exceeded £1,016,775 per annum, and might be taken to represent a capital sum of £30,559,100. The number of Episcopal churches in Scotland has increased from 75 to 321 in the past sixty years. A gain of nearly 1,000 communicants was recorded in 1896. Church Missionary Society.-The receipts of the Church Missionary Society from all sources, excluding special funds, as reported at the annual meeting in May, amounted to £297,626, exceeding those of any other former year by £25,000, and also exceeding the aggregate of general and special funds together in any former year. The excess in general contributions was £13,668, just balancing a diminution in legacies of £13,366. The associations had sent up £5,000 more than ever before. Adding special funds of £43,769 (including £7,900 for the Famine fund) the total amount contributed for all purposes was brought up to £341,400. The expenditure had risen to £297,260. A deficit was still left of £9,000. Eighty-five missionaries had been accepted for service. Seventy-seven hundred adult baptisms, the largest number recorded in any one year, were returned from the mission fields. The history of the society during the sixty years of the reign of Queen Victoria was referred to as calling for great thankfulness, while progress was especially conspicuous during the past ten years. A liberal response had been made to the appeal on behalf of the "Three Years' Enterprise.' 66 handed labors of Marsden had led to a succession of bishops, of whom Selwyn was the chief, and there were now 6 dioceses. A like record could be made of the efforts of the Church in every part of the empire, and the society now ministered through the agency of 766 missionaries in 55 dioceses, where 54 languages were spoken. Many colonial and missionary bishops were present and took part in the proceedings by the reading of papers and reports relative to the condition of religion and the Episcopal Church in the countries of their residence. The Bishop of Calcutta spoke of "The Extension of the Episcopate and Church Organization in India"; the Bishop of Chota Nagpur, on 'Missions to the Aborigines in India"; the Bishop of South Tokyo, on "The Church in Japan"; the Bishop of Korea, on missions to that country; the Bishop of Cape Town, on "The Province of South Africa"; the Bishop of St. John's, Kaffraria, on "The Church's Work among the Native Tribes of South Africa"; the Bishop of Bloemfontein on the work of the physician in the mission field; the Bishop of Grahamstown on the ministries of women in the mission field; the Archbishop of Rupertsland, on “The Ecclesiastical Province of Canada"; the Bishop of Perth, on the work of the Church in Australia; the Bishop of Jamaica, on the West India province; Bishop Blyth, on "The Relations of the Anglican Church to the Churches of the East"; the Bishop of Gibraltar, on English Congregations on the Continent"; the Bishop of Missouri, on the domestic missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States; and the Bishop of Kentucky, on the foreign missions of that Church. 66 The full report of the missions gives the following statistics, most of the numbers being much in ex- Other Missionary and Benevolent Societies. cess of those of the previous year: Number of sta--At the meeting of the United Boards of Missions tions, 483; of European clergy, 372; of European of Canterbury and York held in May, a resolution laymen, 110; of European wives, 293; of European was adopted inviting the Society for the Propagawoman missionaries, 238; of Eurasian clergy, 20; tion of the Gospel, the Church Missionary Society, of native clergy, 341; of native lay agents, 4,108; and other missionary associations in the Church of of native women laborers, 1,211; of baptized native England to conference in order to consider what Christian adherents, 203,701; of native catechumens, steps might be taken to mitigate the evils arising 29,409; of native communicants, 62,785; of bap from the division of missionary interests and ortisms during the year, 8,020 of adults and 8,399 of ganizations. The Committee on Legal Disabilities children; of schools and seminaries, 2,171, with 92,- of native Christians in India reported that after 804 scholars and seminarists. In the medical work, receiving evidence from the majority of the Indian 7,749 in patients and 500.674 out patients were bishops and from several missionaries they had treated. The number of missionaries sent out by found no serious disabilities for which a remedy the society between 1837 and 1887, the first fifty must be sought by legislation except, perhaps, in reyears of Queen Victoria's reign, was 900, a yearly gard to marriage; and the committee had recomaverage of 18, the average of the last ten of those mended "that when both the parties in a heathen years being 23. The number sent out between 1887 marriage subsequently profess the Christian faith and 1897, between her Majesty's jubilee and her dia- they should be encouraged to make a solemn and mond jubilee, was 666, a yearly average of 66. On public profession of their desire to maintain their June 1, 1887, there were connected with the society union on the basis of Christian marriage, that a spe247 missionaries, 40 laymen, and 22 women (not in- cial form of service to be used in churches on such cluding wives); on June 1, 1897, there were 376 or- occasions should be prepared and promulgated by dained missionaries, 110 laymen, and 244 women. the synod of the Church in India, and that appliThe advance in the aggregate number during the cation should be made to the legislature to permit ten years exceeded by 114 that of the first eighty- the registration of such public acknowledgments eight years of the society's history. of the parties to the continuance of their marriage contract on the conditions which attach to marriages recognized by the Church. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.The one hundredth and ninety-sixth anniversary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was celebrated in London June 25, the Archbishops of York and Canterbury severally presiding at the different sessions. The secretary, reading an address of welcome, spoke of the progress of the Anglican Church since the Queen's accession as having been marvelous. In 1837 there were only 7 bishoprics owning allegiance to Canterbury, and in the United States there were only 16 sees; now the 7 had grown to 92 and the 16 to 78. In India in 1837 there were only 2, where now there were 10 sees, and the 4 natives ministering in the Church sixty years ago had increased to 300. In Australia there were now 14 sees, and in New Zealand the single The annual meeting of the Colonial Missionary Society, now sixty-one years old, was held in London May 13. Sir William Dunn, Bart., M. P., presided. The society had spent more than £4,000 during the year in colonial missionary work, but for the first time had incurred a small debt. The income of the Colonial and Continental Society for 1896-£18,022-was £1,000 in excess of that of the previous year. An old debt of £2,000 still remained, and an additional £10,000 was needed for all purposes. Including the sums raised and spent in the colonies, the year's income rose to £39,285. An addition of £1,700 had been made to the Endowment fund, which now amounted to £6, 834. A younger clergy and laity association had been formed, and a ladies' association was at work auxiliary to the society. Assistance was rendered by the society to churches in eastern and western Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, Madras, and British Honduras; and many outlying places depended on it for spiritual care. The Student Volunteer Missionary Union of Great Britain since 1892 has banded together 1,300 men and women purposing to be missionaries, 300 of whom have gone into the service. It is not a society for sending out missionaries, but seeks to influence young men to devote themselves to the service of Christ in heathen and foreign lands. It besides encourages Christian students to support the work abroad "by real sacrifice, systematic missionary study, and definite prevailing prayer." An international conference held at Liverpool early in 1896 was attended by 715 students from 23 different nations. The year's income of the Additional Curates Society was returned at £63,119, and its expenditure at £63,296. The sum of £8,000 and upward had been received for the Quinquennial fund, and this had enabled the committee to vote grants to the extent of £1,600 a year, to the great benefit of 36 parishes. The Archbishop of Canterbury said in his anniversary address that the society was at the center of a number of local societies which were independent of it, and their work must be regarded as an addition to the work that it was doing. There was, however, a great advantage in such a society, because the local societies could not undertake the work in all its fullness. The report of the Incorporated Church Building Society, May 26, showed that 22 grants of land had been made for new churches, amounting to £2,730, 17 for mission buildings, amounting to £500, and 33 for enlarging and rebuilding churches, amounting to £1,140. The year's revenue had been £5,014, including £465 from legacies, as against £9,760 in the previous year, when the legacies amounted to £5,886. The Church Army.-The report of the Church Army presented at the annual meeting, May 5, represented that the year had been one of great prosperity. The number of evangelists, nurses, and colporteurs had increased from 418 to 504; the number of vans had doubled; and the evangelists in charge had held nearly 1,000 seven-day parochial missions, and sold £2,248 worth of Bibles, prayer books, etc. The social department in the 47 institutions had dealt with nearly 9,000 people suffering under adverse conditions, paying them £11,000, and more than 50 per cent. of them had thus obtained a fresh start in life. The labor home work was approved by the Prison Commissioners, and the Charity Organization Society and many boards of guardians supported it with money grants. The year's income had been £77,257, in cluding £6.171 from the sale of property and stocks; and the expenditure £70,659, including £5.000 for the purchase of consols; and instead of a deficit of £1,867 the society had a surplus of £4,749. The balance sheet showed assets amounting to £26,592, with liabilities of £719. Two diamond jubilee funds were proposed: one of £10,000 for new headquarters, and one of £5,000 for the Workers' Benevolent fund. For the current expenses of the ensuing year £85,000 were wanted, and for extension of homes, etc., £15,700. Resolutions were passed declaring that the mission work deserved greater support from the Church, and that the social and rescue work claimed the fullest co-operation of the prison and poor-law authorities. The Church Union. The thirty-eighth anniversary meeting of the English Church Union was held in the Church House, Westminster, Lord Hali- At a meeting of the Church Union, April 29, a resolution was unanimously passed to the effect that the confirmation of an election to a vacant bishopric and of the person elected should be solemnly made by the archbishop in person, accompanied by such other bishops of the province as may be, and that it should no longer have the appearance of a merely formal legal ceremony; also that opportunity should be freely given for objectors to appear with their advocates with written objections in formal legal and canonical shape. The Liberation Society.-The annual meeting of the council of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from the patronage and control of the state was held in London, May 5. Mr. F. A. Channing, M. P., presided. The report mentioned that the Evangelical Free Church Council, lately formed, had been found useful in furnishing opportunities for the advocacy, by representatives of the society, of its fundamental principles in new places or circles. The multiplication of these societies was likely greatly to strengthen the political as well as the religious influence of the free churches. As among the events of the year bearing on the work of the society were mentioned the defeat of the burials bill by a majority of only 44, Mr. Smith's motion for disestablishment, the question of mixed marriages in Malta, and the defeat of the "sectarian" education bill of 1896 and the carrying of the bill of 1897. The formation of the schemes, the proceedings of the educational associations, and the course pursued by the department would need immediate and vigilant watching. The increasing demand among Churchmen for Church reform and the increasing 66 openness of ritualists indicated that the tendencies of the times were operating to hasten the termination of the existing connection between the civil power and ecclesiastical bodies. As Parliament was asked to relieve the clergy in connection with local taxation, it might become necessary to resist financial charges which would practically further endow the established Church at public expense. During the past year a Churchman's Liberation League had been established. A resolution was adopted calling upon the friends of religious liberty to decide without delay on an educational policy to be pressed upon the constituencies and upon the next Liberal administration. The year's income of the society had been £4,836, and the expenditure £4,402. The Church Reform League.-The first report of the Church Reform League, which was presented at the annual meeting, May 10, covers only six months. It represented that substantial progress had been made in advancing the purposes of the organization. The membership was increasing rapidly, and nearly half of the present 800 members were clergymen. As to future action the council advised the concentration of all efforts on getting a short enabling act through Parliament which would 'set the Church free to exercise her inherent right of constitutional self-government, subject to the control of the Crown, and in all matters of legislation subject also to the veto of Parliament." The Church could thus gradually effect all needful reforms itself, especially those connected with the position of the laity, discipline, patronage, and finance. A letter was read at the public meeting of the league from Mr. Gladstone expressing his sympathy and approval in the tentative efforts for the gradual enlargement of self-governing power in the Church, and adding: "I am far from sorry to have belonged in 1853 to the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen which gave to Convocation its first installment of free action, a gift which had been refused by Mr. Walpole on behalf of the Government of Lord Derby in 1852. Viewing this, with other Church matters, as a whole, I am astonished at the progress made in the last fifty years, and am confident that many a 'convert' would have been arrested on the brink of his change could he have been endowed with a prophetic vision of what was to come. It also excites a lively thankfulness to observe that all this progress has been attended with a marked improvement of feeling as between Churchmen and nonconform ists.' The Church Association.-The chief proposals of the scheme of Church reform recommended by the council of the Church Association contemplate, the readjustment of the incomes of the dignitaries and inferior clergy on a fairer basis than at present, and amendment of the mode of appointment of the bishops; that the Church should take part in the election of its chief pastors, and the bishop's veto should be abolished. The scheme aims at securing deprivation instead of imprisonment of clergy for disobedience, greater equality in incomes, with compulsory retirement for gross scandal, immorality, or incapacity, and provision of liberal pensions for long service and old age. It advises that the election of church wardens be restored to the parishioners and their number increased according to the size of the parish. All requisites for services should be provided by them alone. And either of them should have power to remove ornaments introduced without a faculty. It proposes that parishioners should have a veto on all appointments of parochial clergy, and the laity should have a legal franchise secured to them; that power to form parochial councils be given to the parishioners; that no change be made in the services without approval of the parochial council; that sales of benefices by auction and sales of next presentation be abolished; that a diocesan patronage board be formed and all Crown patronage be exercised by and with its advice; that parishioners should have power to purchase advowsons of their own parish; that the freehold of the fabrics be vested in the incumbent and church wardens for the time being, but only as trustees for the parish, dereliction of duty to be a violation of trust; that the finances be controlled by the incumbent and the church wardens jointly under the direction of the parochial council; that convocation be reformed so as to secure a true representation of both clergy and laity, thus constituting a national council; and that the ecclesiastical courts be fused into the high court of justice and their procedure be assimilated to that of the civil courts. A memorial addressed by this association to the Queen, bearing the signatures of 86,876 women, asked her Majesty when selecting future bishops to confer her patronage on those who are opposed to the efforts being made to revive the confessional and to restore the sacrifice of the mass, which her Majesty on her accession to the throne publicly declared to be both "superstitious and idolatrous." Church Defense. The Church Committee for Church Defense and Church Instruction was formed in the autumn of 1896 by the amalgamation of the Church Defense Institution and the Central Church Committee. The work of education and organization performed previous to the union by these two bodies is now continued and carried on by the amalgamated body, which, with the assistance of the diocesan and other local committees, is endeavoring to extend the field of its operations throughout the whole of England and Wales. The receipts of the two bodies during 1896 amounted, including two special gifts of £2,000 and £1,200 respectively, to £12,548, while the expenditure was £13,289. The work of the societies proceeded without interruption through the negotiations for union during the whole year. The general committee, at its annual meeting, April 6, by resolution, reaffirmed the necessity for continued and extensive organization in defense of the Church and of the dissemination of information among all classes as to its origin, history, and work. The Archbishop of Canterbury addressed the meeting in reference to methods in which boys could be taught and encouraged to learn concerning Church matters. Home Reunion Society.-The report of the Home Reunion Society, presented in June, represented that there were many signs of an advance toward that outward unity which must eventually be accomplished. Wherever social barriers had been removed a more friendly response was now assured in all communications with Nonconformists. Avoidance of overlapping in the mission field was also mentioned as a means of promoting a better understanding. Christian Knowledge Society.-At the general meeting of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, Oct. 5, grants amounting to £4,944 were voted for the building of 39 churches and schools in Canada, British Columbia, the West Indies, South Africa, Mid-China, Australia, New Zealand, etc.; for scholarships for the training of Canadians for holy orders and for studentships for Christian girls in India; also £1,000 for an endowment fund for clergy in the poor diocese of Algoma, and £2,000 for the maintenance of the medical work of the society in India. Grants of publications were made for various institutions at home and abroad, the aggregate value of which was placed at £1,158. Church-of-England Temperance Society.-A letter addressed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishop of Chichester, Chairman of the Church-of-England Temperance Society, to the clergymen of England, commended the society and the temperance cause, inviting them to form branches of the society in their several parishes, and earnestly asking them "to consider the question and see whether it may not help at any rate some of your people to a higher and better life if they can find assistance to overcome what may perchance be a besetting sin. If not an adult branch, perhaps you can establish a Band of Hope. The training of the young in habits of temperance (selfcontrol) is of the greatest importance to the future well-being of the nation, and this can be best accomplished, at any rate as regards drink, by means of the Band of Hope. We would only urge you not to pass the matter by as one of no importance. It is the experience of most parish priests who have tried it that organized temperance work is the greatest possible help to a due discharge of the spiritual functions committed to them." Ministry of Women in the Church.-A conference on the organization of women ministries in the Church was held at the Church House, Westminster, July 21, the Bishop of St. Andrew's presiding. The chairman referred to the great influence exercised by women in the present day, and said it was recognized by thoughtful men of every school as one of the leading ideas of the nineteenth century. Canon Body gave an address on "Woman's Place in the Church," and the Bishop of Grahamstown followed with one on "The Sisterhood Life." The Bishop of Stepney said that he favored the suggestion that deaconesses should hold a high position as ministers of the Church, and he was disposed to support the taking of vows. The Right of Public Meeting. The Rev. H. L. Young, rector of St. John's Church, Portsea, having been advertised to take part in a public meeting in connection with the Portsmouth and South Hants Protestant Association, the Bishop of Winchester addressed him a letter deploring the fact of his choosing such an occasion and mode of action to protest against ritualism in the Church of England. Mr. Young replied, admitting his intention to participate in the meeting, and explaining that the Baptist chapel was chosen merely as a matter of convenience, and expressed surprise at the bishop's writing on such a matter, seeing that he was acting within the civil and religious liberty given him by the Crown. As regarded the lay members of the Church of England, it was a pure assumption on the part of the bishop to imagine that he could in any way restrict their liberty of public meeting. It was also surprising that the bishop could have written to him, as he not only could tolerate in the parish of Cosham, where the meeting was about to be held, the most shameful ritualistic practices and lawlessness, but similar proceedings took blace in other churches of his diocese. Recently, at a confirmation service at St. Agatha's, the bishop had taken part in a procession and was preceded by acolytes with lighted torches, thus not merely aiding lawlessness, but treating with contempt the decisions of her Majesty's judges. The writer concluded by saying that if the bishop had kept his episcopal contract with the realm to banish strange and erroneous doctrines contrary to God's word, there would be no occasion for him to address the meeting at Cosham or for the bishop to write him a letter criticising him for so doing. Mr. Young attended the meeting and addressed it, denouncing ritualistic practices in the Church. The Rev. T. Stringer, vicar of Christ Church, Potsdown, who had re ceived a similar letter from the bishop, also attended the meeting. Defense of Anglican Orders.-The reply of the archbishops to the circular of the Pope denying the validity of Anglican orders was published as a general letter, March 8. The archbishops begin by speaking of the serious nature of the duty imposed upon them as "one which can not be discharged without a certain deep and strong emotion. But, since we firmly believe that we have been truly ordained by the Chief Shepherd to bear a part of his tremendous office in the Catholic Church, we are not at all disturbed by the opinion expressed in that letter." They then point out that, with respect to the form and matter of holy orders, "it is impossible to find any tradition on the subject coming from our Lord or his apostles, except the well-known example of prayer with laying on of hands, and that little is to be found bearing on this matter in the decrees of provincial councils, and nothing certain or decisive in those of ecumenical and general assemblies. Nor, indeed, does the Council of Trent, in which our fathers took no part, touch the subject directly.” The whole judgment of the Pope, the answer continues, "hinges on two points-namely, on the practice of the court of Rome and the form of the Anglican rite, to which is attached a third question, not easy to separate from the second, on the intention of our Church. We will answer at once about the former, though it is, in our opinion, of less importance. As regards the practice of the Roman court and legate in the sixteenth century, although the Pope writes at some length, we believe he is really as uncertain as ourselves. We see that he has nothing to add to the documents which are already well known." Certain documents cited by the Pope and their bearings are reviewed, and the archbishops acknowledge with the Pope that the laying on of hands is the matter of ordination; that the form is prayer or blessing appropriate to the ministry to be conferred; "that the intention of the Church, as far as it is externally manifested, is to be ascertained, so that we may discover if it agrees with the mind of our Lord and his apostles and with the statutes of the universal Church. We do not, however," they add, “attach so much weight to the doctrine... that each of the sacraments of the Church ought to have a single form and matter exactly defined, nor do we suppose that this is a matter of faith with the Romans." Baptism stands alone as a sacrament in being quite certain both in its form and its matter; and as to confirmation, "if the doctrine about a fixed matter and form in the sacraments were admitted, the Romans have administered confirmation imperfectly, and the Greeks have none. sponding to that part of the Pope's bull that deals with the question of intention, the archbishops show and maintain that "if, according to the Pope's suggestion, our fathers of the year 1550 and after went wrong in the form by omitting the name of bishop they must have gone wrong in company of the modern Roman Church," and quote words immediately following in the ordinal which are used by St. Paul in reference, they believe, to the consecration of Timothy as bishop as sufficiently meeting the purpose. "The form of ordering a presbyter employed among us in 1550 and afterward was equally appropriate. . . . The two commissions taken together include everything essential to the Christian priesthood, and, in our opinion, exhibit it more clearly than is done in the sacramentaries and pontificals." When, in 1662, the addition for the office and work of a priest "was made, it would not seem to have been done in view of the Roman controversy, but in order to enlighten Re the Presbyterians, who were trying to find a ground for their opinions in our prayer book," the Church of England's debate then being much more severe with them and other innovators than it was with the Romans. In answer to other assertions of the Pope against the intentions of the Church, the archbishops quote the title of the ordinal of 1552, which ran, "The fourme and maner of makynge and consecratynge Bishoppes, Priestes, and Deacons," and the words of the preface enlarging this phrase and emphasizing its meaning as quite clearly setting forth that intention "to keep and continue these offices which come down from the earliest times, and reverently to use and esteem them' in the sense, of course, in which they were received from the apostles, and had been up to that time in use." The argument is closed with a reiteration of the charge that in overthrowing the English orders by the denial of their validity in the shape in which he has made it the Pope “overthrows all his own, and pronounces sentence on his own Church." Finally, the archbishops declare themselves equally zealous with the Pope in their devotion to peace and unity in the Church. "We acknowledge that the things which our brother Pope Leo XIII has written from time to time in other letters are sometimes very true and always written with a good will. For the difference and debate between us and him arises from a diverse interpretation of the self-same Gospel which we all believe and honor as the only true one. We also gladly declare that there is much in his own person that is worthy of love and reverence. But that error, which is inveterate in the Roman communion, of substituting the visible head for the invisible Christ will rob his good works of any fruit of peace. Join with us, then, we entreat you, most reverend brethren, in weighing patiently what Christ intended when he established the ministry of his Gospel. When this has been done more will follow as God wills in his own good time." Many protests were uttered against the tenor of this letter and the point of view from which the question was regarded in it by persons and societies maintaining Protestant principles. The National Club Association and the Protestant Reformation Society issued a declaration that (1) "while holding firmly the validity of the orders of the Church of England, we yet unhesitatingly maintain that her ministers are simply presbyters and not priests; (2) that the statements put forth by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in reply to the papal bull concerning Anglican orders on the subject of the priesthood' and 'the eucharistic sacrifice, as well as on other points, are not in harmony with the doctrine of the Church of Eng land, as set forth in the articles, liturgy, and ordinal; and we record, therefore, our solemn and deliberate protest against these statements as being nothing more than private and unauthorized opin ions of the two archbishops; (3) that, as a matter of fact, neither sacrificing priest, altar, nor propitiatory sacrifice is to be found in the legal standards of our Church, which embody only the 'Protestant Reformed religion established by law'; and further (4), that we deprecate any attempt on the part of individual bishops to negotiate terms of communion with foreign churches.' The Committee of the Irish Church Missions in June unanimously adopted a minute concerning the letter, in which they expressed themselves constrained, "with the deepest sorrow, to declare it to be as a whole, both in matter and tone, unworthy of the Protestant and Reformed Church of England. That it should have emanated from the two archbishops of the Church is, in the opinion of the committee, a fact of solemn and portentous signifi cance in view of the prevalence of sacramentarian and sacerdotal teaching. The committee feel it to be incumbent upon them to record their solemn protest against the unscriptural views advanced by the archbishops on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, as well as the attempt to claim for clergymen of the English Church the position and functions of sacrificing priests-a dogma absolutely without sanction in the standards of the Church or in Scripture, and in support of which an attempt is made to minimize the significance of the changes made in the ordinal at the Reformation." A letter addressed by the council of the National Church Union, in June, to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, expressed the reasons of that body for being unable to agree with certain statements contained in the answer. After discussion of the points of the letter in detail, the letter concludes: "The council regard it as a reason of profound regret that your lordships have not in these particulars adopted the interpretation of the formularies of the Church of England followed by the great body of her leading divines ever since the Reformation, and which would have commanded the cordial support of every loyal Churchman. The adoption, on the contrary, of an interpretation in favor only with an extreme and comparatively modern school of theologians can not but further increase our present unhappy divisions, while any attempts to render such an interpretation authori tative would rend the Church in twain. It is with the utmost regret that the council are constrained to dissent from statements publicly set forth by the archbishops of their Church; and they trust that your grace will accept their assurance that nothing but the most solemn sense of responsibility to God and the Church would have induced them to under. take this painful duty," A petition addressed to the Queen, in July, by the Church Association, invited her Majesty's attention "to the recent public action of their Graces the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in taking upon themselves to address the heads of the corrupt Latin and Greek Churches, thereby claiming independent authority to speak in the name of the established Church of this country, and also to the fact that they have attempted to justify their action by misquoting the legalized formularies of our Church, while adducing, as authoritative, documents which have no official character." The memorialists prayed that the Queen would, in accordance with her coronation oath, be pleased to maintain the Protestant faith within the realm, and to require explanation from the archbishops as to their unauthorized action in thus encroaching upon the royal prerogative. Convocations of Canterbury and York.-In the Convocation of Canterbury the upper and lower houses, at the meeting in January, agreed upon provisions to be recommended for enlarging the representation of the clergy by increasing the number of proctors. The upper house unanimously requested the archbishop to take such steps as were necessary for elucidating or amending the use now observed in confirming the election of bishops. The president (archbishop) on presentation of this petition to him intimated that the house had decided that it was not the business of convocation to deal with that matter, and that therefore the petition could not be received. On this subject the House of Laymen unanimously resolved that the form of confirmation of bishops as recently carried out should be altered so as, on the one hand, to prevent the scandal of calling for opponents and then refusing to hear them, and, on the other hand, to safeguard the Church of England in the appointment of fit persons to her bishop |